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Join Dylan Ratigan As He Kicks Off His "Steel On Wheels" Tour To Advocate American Job Creation For Americans
Dylan Ratigan, having recently reincarnated himself as an activitst against the meddling of the banking oligarchy in American everyday lives, and a proponent for job creation, has hit the road, literally, with his inaugural event for his Steel on Wheel movement. The event starts at 7pm, and will be held in Seneca Falls. The idea behind this event is to bring different sectors of the political spectrum, from activists to investors to corporate leadership, towards building a Jobs Movement where Americans advocate for jobs in America that make things for Americans. The focus will be on removing the four bottlenecks of jobs: megabanks, the health care cartel, corrupt trade practices, and the aristocratic tax code. The tour is done in partnership with Nucor Steel, whose CEO Dan DiMicco will be one of the participants in tonight's town hall.
Here is Dylan justification for creating this long-overdue event:
Get America Working: We Need a Movement to Solve a Crisis
It's time, America. Americans need work. Americans need jobs. And
right now, our government's main job must be to help create these jobs.
The unemployment rate has lingered 9 percent for 19 straight months;
the longest postwar stretch on record. And with our list of challenges
ranging from overpriced health care to evaporating manufacturing, where
can we start? Here are four steps our country must take now to get
Americans back to work. Each tackles a bottleneck to jobs that must be
fixed now:
Fair Trade, Not "Free" Trade
First, we must balance our trade deficit by making trade fair. Some of our trading partners, China for example, have become our trading enemies
by devaluing their currency, basically giving us their unemployment
problem in return for buying our debt. Putting pressure on China to end
their currency manipulation and illegal trade practices will immediately
lead to more U.S.-based manufacturing -- jobs we desperately need back.
I did an interview with Dr. Peter Morici to discuss how our trade and banking policies are costing us jobs.
Make Banking the Practice of Lending to Businesses, Not Gambling or Buying Treasuries
Banks no longer make money from lending to American businesses. With
massive bank consolidation due to deregulation, as well as massive
bailouts, we now have four mega-banks that couldn't be less interested
in lending to businesses. Borrowing has declined 7 straight quarters while bank profits (and bonuses) are at all time highs. We have to break the bankers to bring back jobs. Listen to my Radio Free Dylan with Barry Ritholz and Josh Rosner for more on this problem.
Control Health Care and College Tuition Costs
The US spends 16 percent of GDP (twice as much as countries like the UK) but have worse health care.
Much of the brunt of paying for this inefficient health care comes from
US-based companies that are (unlike their foreign counterparts)
mandated to pay employee health care. The price of college tuition and
fees are skyrocketing as well, rising over 439 percent (adjusted for inflation) over the past 25 years.
Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade as prices
jumped 8 percent last year alone, meaning college may soon be out of
reach for many Americans. Meanwhile, there aren't enough jobs for these
students to pay off the debt, with high unemployment and over 17 million college graduates currently doing menial jobs. Listen to my interview with CEPR Director Dean Baker for more on this problem.
Reform the Tax Code
Right now, Warren Buffett's secretary pays a higher percentage of
income to taxes than Warren Buffett. That's a very big problem for
anyone who isn't the child of a billionaire. We need to reorganize the
tax code to promote US investment instead of rewarding overseas investment and aristocracy. Listen to my interview with tax expert and bestselling author David Cay Johnston for more on this problem.
When you have problems as we do, surely there is opportunity for work
solving them. But first we must correctly identify the root causes and
activate the necessary debate around the actual problems that are
costing America its jobs.
For the next three days, I'm going to be traveling the country for
the Steel on Wheels tour. We're having a conversation about how to make
things in this country again. Join us. We'll be holding Town Halls on
each leg of the tour, starting tonight at the University of Rochester (watch the live stream at 7pm EST here)
And let me know what you think we need to do to put America back to work on our new collaborative website at SteelOnWheels.com!
Or, if you'd like to stream our live town hall on your own website, click here to grab the embed code.
The event can be viewed below (and if the stream does not appear, you can watch it here):
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Awesome !!!!!
Instead of talking about it let's try fixing it.
"Get America Working" should be "get people skillful". The demand is always out there it's lack of skills to meet the demand that creates unemployment.
"Fair Trade, Not "Free" Trade" You can sell China a few aircraft carriers, F22s and some more to instantly get it fair and going, can you not? Just be careful what you wish for.
"Make Banking the Practice of Lending to Businesses" Better cut crazy regulatory crap such as Community Reinvest Act so that banking system could run on business rather than political basis.
"Control Health Care and College Tuition Costs" The reason they dare charge you that much is b/c of all the subsidies government provides. Drop the subsidies and college loan programs will drive down the cost real fast.
"Reform the Tax Code" Just default on TBond, SS, Medicare / Medicaid and whatnot welfare out there so that you don't have to tax all that much to drive business owners oversea. It's not like government has a chance in heck to fulfill those promises anyway.
Be careful Dylan. Advocating for $10/hour jobs is simply reinforcing the power of the oligarchy.
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8092315/
Well, we could transform the federal tax code into a simple sales tax. The mechanism is already in place. Very, very simple to implement.
However, that would put a lot of CPAs and lawyers out of work. Which is why it will never happen.
(tax CPAs and tax lawyers ... two occupations which contribute nothing of value to society, but are currently necessary)
I'm sure the gentleman has the best intentions, but to bring together "different sectors of the political spectrum" is futile and wasteful of his efforts.
The "political" universe survives ONLY by skimming from the producers. That's not even a statement that's open to argument, save trying to re-engineer definitions.
He's trying to get the predators to eat less, and more carefully. That ends with them promising that they'll be nicer, and that they really, really mean it this time, and with the gentleman placing his imprimatur on a Leviathan Lite.
Not an effective use of his good energies, or anyone else's.
There are a few more industries that fall under the category of "skimmers" and do nothing to add real wealth to our economy.
I think if you look at those industries, you'll find that they get their position/power in some way from the political class.
Or visa versa.
I'm not at all sure he has the best intentions; although it's certainly possible he's just another citizen incapable of thinking; but the "message" is just empty verbiage.
Well, perhaps I'm being overly polite, but I do remember doing some fairly stupid things with good intentions myself. :)
@CH1
Damn fine post. I wish I could promote this. We really need a promote button.
Wheels of Steel - Yes. Stealer's Wheel - No.
"The tour is done in partnership with Nucor Steel..."
So the next LBO will be Nucor Steel. Should take the Feral backed banksters about 10 secs to chew that up, pillage it and excreet the husk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbXhu09m5s
Look at me, I'm a populist.
Yawn.
i smell a rat :) seems like every one wants to start a movement then it drifts of into one or the other party and is co opted :(
If you cause enough media hype you can get bought out; it's a career.
Dylan can be such a dork. Government needs to downsize about 80% and get their hands off of every business process they currently touch. From EPA to FDA, junk those depts. and let entrepeneurs fly. China kicks ass because they can, no one has told them no, try to open a corner store or actually produce something, you'll be aborted via regulations.
Fuck Dylan, he is just playing pied piper and helping everyone run off of a cliff.
And their currency being undervalued by 50% doesn't hurt. And yes, that's not just a cliche but real.. I've been there.. Spent money.. I'm good at math.. This isn't rocket science.
If the fucking prostitutes in Washington weren't so dependant on them to help with their spending fix over the past decade something may have been done about it.
Its not like the USA is not doing the same.
I understand the temptation of looking for a scapegoat, but before complaining of currency devaluation the USA should pull their shit together. You can not complain foreigns are doing the same you are doing and expect to be taken seriously.
We don't need a scapegoat, we need a sobering view. Regardless of what you say, China holds an advantage over US with severely devalued currency.. PERIOD ! You in no way shape or form proven my statement false.. Fail..
First, you have not proven that China has a devalued currency in respect to the dollar, much less by 50%.
How is having a pegged currency a advantage? A lot of countries have tried to have a pegged currency to tthe dollar and then collapsed, f.e. Argentina. In fact the majority of countries that pegged their currency to the dollar have gone south.
Right, Governments job is not to create jobs. It is to provide the essential services that arent provided by private industry and services must benefit everyone equally. Government can help create CONDITIONS conducive to create jobs but not create jobs directly.
Obama was caught on cam going into the CEO summit saying he is going to lecture the CEO's on hiring people. What a fucking socialist dork! Businesses need stability and a reason to expand. Hiring FOLLOWS growing demand and expansion. Hiring does not START economic expansion. Well, except if you are in the government and think that fucking unemployment benefits stimulate the economy like Pelosi said.
True. I guess it's job now days though is to feed the kids of parents to stupid to do so, and any other tentacles it can push in somewhere. We have an administration where 92% of its members have never worked outside of government and they are going to school us on how to create jobs and stimulate economic activity. And, don't know the numbers on house and senate but I'd be willing to bet a nickel 75% of them have never held a job outside of government aside from lawyering.
That's right.
yawn! wake me up when it is over.
Dylan Ratman should join together with Glenn Beck and rally up a big homo pride parade.
I'm sure all their fanboys would show up in colorful rainbow gear.
It would be real nice if the Panama City 'V for Vendetta' guy showed up at their parade. Real nice.
No shit.
Dylan is obviously pulling a Glenn Beck. In 2007 Beck called Ron Paul supporters terrorists... then in 2008 when Fox bought him, he adopted the same language, rethoric and style, and his ratings went up. Dylan is trying to do the same. Its all strategy and enterteiment.
This is simply a good plan .. no matter the result.
Agree.
Anythings better than casting a hopeful eye toward DC and expecting any relief.
They have spent us into the poorhouse, explaining "we must invest (read, place an even larger debt on the next generation) in ourselves"...at this rate we won't even have a poorhouse, we'll be on the street.
At least he is trying to do something instead of just complaining.
Dylan is tuned in enough to know what the true underlying reasons for job implosion are, this is just a charade and no, just "doing something" is counter-productive. This looks designed to deflect attention from the rotten to the core crony system we have in place.
Dylan gets some face time, fuck Dylan, he was also a bailout cheerleader on CNBC, played the masters hand for them.
Fuck him.
"Dylan gets some face time, fuck Dylan, he was also a bailout cheerleader on CNBC, played the masters hand for them."
We all learn...everyday.
I haven't grown so cynical I'm going to crawl up in a fetal position and suck my thumb. Anyone can change.
No, you are in fetal position sucking their thumbs (being nice here), they toss you some some false hope, you gobble it down.
Dylan is fronting another charade, the dog returns to its vomit.
I didn't junk you first off.
Second...you don't need to be nice to me...I'm a big boy.
Third...apparently all you have to offer is to draw a red circle & a V inside it and shoot at government officials like the idiot in Panama City before being brought down.
You go your way I'll go mine...good luck.
http://www2.counton2.com/news/2010/dec/15/video-panama-city-man-shoots-school-board-members--ar-1226319/
My son showed me that viseo a few hours ago. Out of control.
Many people here forget an old saying: An enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I debated myself for moment to post it (the video)...but my default button is set to liberty...outside of dumping confidential cables on to the internet of course...LOL.
It's pretty clear our current problems have been created by government...whether we are talking about illegal immigration, healthcare, taxation, FNM/FRE, bankers pot luck loan buffets, entitlements, whatever...but I'm not despairing enough to go around picking them off.
I see where Japan just dropped their corporate tax rates...the US now stands alone at the top of that category...lovely.
The problem has always been the spending, not revenue going to the government...the amounts sucked out of the real economy & into the black hole that is DC & government...ask any of them, there can/will never be enough revenue that they desire.
The dude in the video was not protesting government intrusion while he was shooting at government...he was protesting his wife being laid off as a teacher, so he was actually advocating for more government intrusion/confiscation from someone else to be redistributed, by government, to him.
Pretty sad individual really, on a host of levels...fortunately, like most progressives, he was an incredibly bad shot...proving himself to be a miserable failure to his very last breath.
...and you are doing exactly what, complaining with no action to back up the tough guy talk.
It's not a good plan; it isn't any plan; it's gormless whinning. and the result always matters. Unless the Federal Government is willing to voluntarily eviscerate itself and defund all the alphabet soup there's absolutely no hope.
Yeah....it's like change you can believe in, and hope, and all that crap
The Rolling Stones are doing a Re-Tour? What??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHk1v32C3CY
One problem Dylan... You've either blown out a few wheels on your bus and lost all tread or your you should be on a train...
I smell a sell out.
OK; $ 10/hour is too low..... but, what amount is the right amount? This thing has many tentacles, and all need pruning. Now; what's the first step?Excuse me for being too realistic but this is simply too little, too late. The wealth has already been looted. This is a somewhat good plan for 15-20 years ago.
Okay, back to the regularly scheduled program of hopeful "not-gonna-happen" fluff.
Dylan Ratigan AKA Porky Pig
when did he 'get religion' so to speak?
Dylan Ratigan, the man with the 4,200 word questions?
"Thank you for the conversation"
Tired of being SCREWED by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and LIED to by PRESIDENT OBAMA, BERNANKE, JAMIE DIMON and the other host of CRONIES??
Then Watch the YouTube Video “AMERICAN DREAM DEAD ~ DENIAL, THEN PANIC” at (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PFqAoqrPOs)
Anonymous-
It’s time you STOPPED getting SCREWED by the BIG RED WHITE and BLUE !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhjA0XNJlAs
Will Kool & The Gang be playing at the rally??
Hey Dylan should not this be Obama's job? Can it be that Obama likes seeing the decline and the redistribution of jobs to the third world? Most people in the know believe that is the case. You would have a hard time convincing me that Obama really cares and I believe the public generally feels the same way I do. Good luck with your efforts. Reagan had the buy American program and that is exactly what we need once again. Unfortunately, you will not get this out of the current administration. Btw this job loss in manufacturing has been going on for forty years.
Start by getting members of the "Evil Tribe" completely out of government, Wall St. and the media!
Very Positive move...God bless the effort!!!
Baaaa.....baaaaa....baaaaa
I will watch if Bruce is there. Otherwise I will cheer from the sidelines. Go Team America!
Sometimes wearing rose coloured glasses creates suspicions.
http://www.thecorporateobserver.com/
The Suit - PIL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhqLF_SxJgQ
While your scratching your balls pondering over the riddle. It will become blatantly obvious soon. Some will miss the grand lifestyle footed on taxpayer monies.
It is your character
Deep in your nature
Take one example
Sample and hold
Romance and replace
The lack in yourself
It is your nature
It is your nature
We see you climbing
Improving the effort
Wearing my suit
It is your character
There is a limit
Over your shoulder
Everyone loves you
Until they know you
Perfume aerosols
May champion the strangers
Nick
Standing around
All the right people
Crawling
Tennis on Tuesday
The ladder is long
It is your nature
You've gotta suntan
Football on Sunday
Society boy
On social security
It is your nature
Tennis on Tuesday
Sipping champagne
Football on Sunday
Home on the train
It is your nature
Girl from Totteridge Park
Said you were nice
So was my suit
The ladder is long
God bless this guy if he is truly sincere. There's only so much the "buy American" movement I'm part of can do and a little help from businesspeople on the other side would be most welcome.
i like Dylan, but he is way off base on this one
The last successful on the road tour, by a television figure, was CNBC Bill Griffith (2007) , titled, "Making money in America". Let's see if Dylan can pull it off and put the job recovery further in the shitter.
Seneca Falls? That's a long drive to China?
He works for GE, an unofficial division of the Fed. Be skeptical. I'm just sayin'......
This plays right to the Tea Party's strength. If he gets any traction, you'll see the Tea Party types get on the bandwagon.
Where the hell am I and what have you bastards done with Tyler Durden and Marla Singer?
I can't tell you where they are now, but they were delicious. Silly buggers let the rabble come right in through the front door!
The four points of the headline certainly caught my eye
however ( as noted by a poster above)
government doesn't 'create' real jobs, it merely transfers wealth.
Government (especially Federal) NEEDS TO SHRINK.
All I need is a level, fair playing field. I can take it from there.
Currently, if one bucks the rigged status quo you either wind up
with gov hired goons putting the shackles on you .... or you lose it in
frustration at what the status quo has done to you ...witness the
shooter in FL today, or the guy flying the plane into the irs building earlier.
All Tax EXEMPTIONS need to be eliminated because they are too subject
to being altered for 'campaign donations'.
A Government that has been hijacked by bankster and other monied interests
is the root of the PROBLEM.
And seriously ... the 'fed' needs to GO!
http://www.thedailybell.com/1602/Wests-Employment-Dysfunction.html
spe- spot on..America has been bled by the leach of gov and banksters..Free trade,taxes,regulations and laws that hog tie business which is not in bed with them..(thankyou GE)..the POWER in America has been chained ..to what purpose?
one can only guess..but occams razor would point to an elite body of unelected rulers trying for world control or as some of the leaders have spoken publicly a NWO (out of Papa BUSH's mouth) ..
America unchained and acting in it's own interest (not the elites NWO insanity) would quickly assend to that shining city on the hill again.
First, a little late on this one.
Second, lost me with the screed on China and their currency "manipulation."
3. I live in Rochester, NY and this wasn't anywhere on the local news.
4. Three days? Dylan's going to fix what's wrong with the USA with town hall meetings over a three-day period?
Just a minute. I need to add more vodka to my drink...
Oh my God, you people disappoint me. Dylan is The King of Run-on Sentences! Give him some credit.
Dylan's going to fix everything that ails America with a corporate titan on the panel? If you're going to plot the end of fascism, best to leave the fascists at home.
While you're at it, how about repealing the 1099 provision in the Obamacare bill?
I'm not buying this snake oil. Ratigan is driving the clown car this time.
Sure, we need to put people back to work. Government isn't going to do that for us. We do that ourselves, at least those of us who have the particular skill of creating productive work. Government needs to back off those who DO have that skill so things can happen again.
We need a movement to solve this crisis alright. A financial BOWEL MOVEMENT. Until we get rid of all the shit financial products we individual humans are involuntarily propping up, we're dead in a septic toilet of our own making.
Fair trade? Yeah, damn those Chinese bastards for pegging their Yuan to our Dollar, then manipulating it by letting it ride along with every TARP and QE that comes out of DC.
Break the bankers? They're already broken. We just keep holding them together with taxpayer-supplied bubble gum and baling wire. We need community investment to put us back to work. Since the banks won't do it, maybe we should get credit unions on the job. They're local and they don't send the cream to Wall Street. We don't need to destroy any more people or institutions. We need to start fixing stuff, since the whole system is already unbelievably broken.
The nation's 'leaders' have already proven they have no intention of making health care a market driven product. The insurance companies will call the financial shots of the medical machine until long after we have skinned and eaten the last congressman.
And as for colleges, the answer is already showing itself. It's retarded to invest $50-$100,000 in a degree that offers no job at the other end, with a debt that you have to die to get out of. This is a self-repairing problem. Eventually all of the PhD janitors will convince their kids that learning a skill is more profitable than getting a diluted college degree. Anybody who can't see from personal experience how useless a college degree is to creation of job skills is a part of the problem, not the solution.
Obviously, just blowing up the tax system would fix the IRS problem. But that's not going to happen until everybody gives up self-interest in favor of sharing the burden. This could take a couple of weeks or more, judging on past performance of the human race. I'm not holding my breath for a couple of weeks to see if it happens though.
The whole 'Steel on Wheels' parade is great faux populist propaganda though. A nearly clever astroturfed grassroots-sounding PR campaign. Pure bullshit, but still a fine way to push the career forward.
But I'm betting on the much greater success of the Goldman Sachs campaign, "Steal on Deals." With Steal on Deals, a portion of every sale goes directly to screwing you up the wazoo.
Why the kick-Dylan-in-the-balls attitude here? His humble road tour may gain support from the energetic but un-organized tea partiers.. Could be interesting. The Buy America theme is in my and likely many of your minds so give the guy a little breathing room. He's one of us.
No he's not. He's a media personality. They're not like real people, I assure you from way too much personal experience.
The US needs to create jobs, period. And not jobs in finance. Not on borrowed time and money. Ratigan is not reality TV. This is REALITY. There is room for other ways to go about this, but offshoring more work and going into debt to pay for imported crap is no longer an option. Get it ?