Newspaper Page Text
5 A
ForsythOpinion
Wednesday, April 25,2012
Liberals don’t get
jobs of the future
1 don't know how many
times I’ve seen liberal com¬
mentators look back with nos¬
talgia to the days when a
young nun fresh out of high
school or military serv ice could
get a w ell-paying job on on
assembly line at a unionized
auto factory that could carry
him through to a comfortable
retirement.
As it happens, 1 grew up in
Detroit ami for a time lived
next door to factory workers.
And l know something that has
eluded the liberal nostalgia s
Which is that people hated
those jobs.
The assembly-line work was
boring and repetitive. That’s
because management imbibed
Frederick W. Taylor’s theories
that workers were stupid and
could not be trusted with any
initiative
It was also because the thou¬
sands of pages of work rules in
United Auto Workers contract,
which forbade assembly-line
speed-ups, also barred any ini¬
tiative or flexible response.
That’s why the UAW in
1970 staged a long strike
against General Motors to give
workers the option of early
retirement, 30-and-out. All
those guys who had gotten
assembly line jobs at 18 or 21
could quit at 48 or 51.
The only problem was that
when they retired they lost
their health insurance. So the
UAW got the Detroit Three
auto companies to pay for gen¬
erous retiree health benefits
that covered elective medical
and dental procedures w ith lit¬
tle or no co-payments.
It was those retiree health
benefits more than anything
else that eventually drove
General Motors and Chrysler
into bankruptcy and into own¬
ership by the government and
the UAW.
The liberal nostalgiacs
would like to see an economy
that gives low-skill high school
graduates similar opportunities
That's what Barack Obama
seems to be envisioning when
he talks about hundreds of
thousands of “green jobs."
But those "green jobs" have
not come into existence despite
massive government subsidies
and crony capitalism It's
become apparent that the old
Detroit model was unsustain¬
able and cannot be revived
even by the most gifted com¬
munity organizer and adjunct
law professor.
For one thing, in a rapidly
changing and technologically
advanced economy, the life¬
time job seems to be a thing of
the past Particularly "lifetime"
jobs where you work only 30
years and then get supported
for the next 30 or so years of
your life
Today’s young people can’t
expect to join large organiza¬
tions and in effect nde escala¬
tors for the rest of thetr careers
The new companies emerging
as winner, in high tech —
think Apple or Google — just
don't employ that many peo¬
ple. at least in the United
CARTOONISTS'VIEWS ON THE NEWS
MTV
I f\ X
// %
toil o
-*♦
/
k.V» H ME
i r Hc#X>y '
r \
i li m
V
W&
Kirli Wellers The Toledo Blade
Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 210 Cumming, G A 30028; tax it to (770) 889-6017; or e mail U to edhorveforsythnrws com Ik *
Ol 1
MICHAEL BARONE
Columnist
States.
Similarly, today’s manufac¬
turing firms produce about as
large a share of the gross
national product as they used
to with a much smaller per¬
centage of the labor force
Moreover, there’s evidence
that recent grow th in some of
the professions — the law,
higher education — has been a
bubble, and is about to burst.
The bad new s for the
Millennial generation that is
entering its work years is that
the economy of the future
won't look like the economy
we’ve grown accustomed to.
The "hope and change” that
Barack Obama promised
hasn’t produced much more
than college loans that will he
hard to pay off and a health
care law that lets them stay on
Mommy and Daddy ’s health
insurance till they're 26.
The good new s is that infor¬
mation technology provides
the iPod/Faccbook generation
with the means to find work
and create careers that build on
their own personal talents and
interests.
As Walter Russell Mead
writes in his brilliant thc
amencan-intcrest.com blog.
“The career paths that
(young people) have been
trained for arc narrow ing,
and they are going to have to
launch out in directions they
and thetr teachers didn't
expect. They were bred and
groomed to live as house
pets, they are going to have
to leant to throe in the
wild"
But, as Mead continues.
"The future is filled with
enterprises not yet bom, jobs
that don't yet exist, wealth that
hasn't been created, wonderful
products and life-altering ser¬
vice not yet given form "
As Jim Manzi argues m his
new book "Uncontrolled," we
can’t predict what this new
work world will look like. It
will be invented through tnal
and error.
What we can he sure of is
that creating your own career
will produce a stronger sense
of satisfaction and fulfillment
Young people who do so won't
hate their work the w ay those
autoworkers hated those
assembly line jobs.
Michael Barone, senior political
analyst for The Washington
Examiner (www washmgtonex
ammer.com), is a resident fellow
at the Amencan Enterpnse
Institute, a Fox News Channel
contributor and a co-author of The
Almanac of Amencan Politics
> s
\ r'~\
SCHOOL HIGH
GRADS
r> 5
Mm Powell tor the Forsyth County News
We keep making mistakes
It has been said that insanity
consists of “doing the same
thing over and over again and
expecting different results "
If that is the case, you might
have to conclude that we’ve got
some deluded people inhabiting
our capitol building.
Georgia's legislators do the
same thing every year: they
pass law s that they are
warned in advance are uncon¬
stitutional, those laws are
indeed challenged in court,
and the court rejects the stat¬
ute for violating cither the
state or the federal constitu¬
tion.
It happened a couple of *
years ago when the General
Assembly created a commis¬
sion to override the decisions
made by locally elected
school boards and approve
state charter schools. The
Georgia Supreme Court
tossed that one out for violat¬
ing the state constitution.
It happened last year when
lawmakers passed an immi¬
gration control bill that was
an attempt to boot undocu¬
mented immigrants out of
Georgia
Federal Judge Thomas
Thrash blocked two of the
law's major provisions and
made a simple observation
that any First-year law student
should know: the U S.
Constitution clearly provides
that immigration and natural¬
ization laws are the responsi¬
bility of the federal govern¬
ment, not the states.
We will probably see the
same thing happen with a bill
that Gov. Nathan Deal signed
last week requiring welfare
applicants to pass a drug
screening test before they can
be eligible for benefits.
The outcome of this one
isn't hard to predict. Florida
passed virtually an identical
law last year and a federal
judge rejected it for violating
the Fourth Amendment pro-
-3E
Did tiro ;/eter
exactly fidui’e out
the text captain i\\*p
was
ilt tiro tune':
m
AAAi^tFS Hi
Jimmy Merguliee The (New Jersey) Record
•r
This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and * *
others. Signed columns and cartoons are the 2
opinions of Ota writers and artists, and they ;
may not reflect our views. '
C ‘J
TOM CRAWFORD
Columnist
tections against unreasonable
search and seizure.
Once again, it appears that
Georgia’s lawmakers are
headed for another embar¬
rassing loss in court.
It's frustrating to see these
things happen because Deal
and House Speaker David
Ralston, the two most power¬
ful men at the capitol, are
intelligent lawyers who have
at least a nodding familiarity
with the constitution. You might
expect them to exercise some
mature oversight and prevent
the legislature from indulging
in this silliness, but they choose
not to do so.
It's bad enough to lose in
court, but the drug testing law
has also proved to be ineffective
and a waste of taxpayers'
money.
When Rortda passed its ver¬
sion of the drug testing law
last year, the bill’s supporters
(like those who voted for
Georgia’s new law) said the
measure would save the state
money It didn’t.
During the four months
before Florida’s law was
overturned, the state required
more than 4.000 applicants
for welfare to take the drug
tests Only 2 percent of those
who took the test failed it.
Because the Florida law
required the state to reim¬
burse those who passed the
drug test, the state ended up
paying about $118,000 to the
98 percent w ho were success¬
ful applicants.
That amount was higher
than what would have been
paid in benefits to the 2 per¬
cent who failed the test. The
net cost to Florida's govern¬
ment was about $46,000 from a
drug screening law that was
supposed to have saved the state
money. And we’re not even
counting the fees that Honda
paid the attorneys it retained to
defend the law in federal court
— where it was rejected for
being unconstitutional.
Simply from the standpoint
of dollars and cents, it would
be more cost-effective for
Georgia’s taxpayers to have a
federal judge nullify the drug
testing bill.
No rational person thinks it
is a good idea to allow tax
dollars to be spent on the pur¬
chase of illegal drugs. But
how do you keep welfare
recipients from doing this :*«#
while, at the same time, rec
agnizing that they have same
right as the rest of us not to
be subjected to unconstitu¬
tional searches?
During the debate over the
drug bill. Sen. Jason Carter
(D-Decatur) proposed a sim¬
ple solution: instead of
requiring everyone who
applies for benefits to take a
drug test, authorize the
Department of Human
Services to administer the test
when it “has reason to
believe" that a welfare recipi¬
ent is using drugs.
Carter’s amendment would
have fixed the constitutional
flaw A majority of the legisla¬
ture, however, evidently
thought it was more important
to score cheap political points
than to pass a law that was
actually constitutional The
Carter amendment was voted
down and the matter is headed
to the federal courts.
Some people never learn
Tom Crawford is editor of The
Georgia Report, an internet news
service at gareport.com that
reports on government and politics
in Georgia. He can be reached at
tcrawford@gareport com.