Gov. Scott Walker held an economic forum at Modine Manufacturing Tuesday with officials from the private sector, state officials, and small business owners.
Employers talked about their frustrations and what prevented them from adding staff. They discussed the difficulties in finding capital funding, having to litigate unemployment claims, navigating the bureaucracy at local municipalities to gain permits, working through the state regulatory process, and finding skilled workers.
Walker vowed to work on issues with staff and help create legislation that would address issues ranging from everything from tort law reform to looking at how technical education is taught.
Russell Gnatt, president and CEO of The Spectrum Group, said small businesses are having problems finding capital from banks, but they are also having problems with cash flow.
"One thing that I hear from the executive round table I participate in…. is that small businesses are saying that 'If I do something for GE, I have to wait 105 days to be paid," Gnatt said. "Capital that is something that has to flow. Collecting it somewhere doesn't do anybody any good. So if businesses aren't responsible enough to keep the money flowing, I don't know what the government can do."
Gnatt told Walker he would rather have his taxes raised to 20 percent rather than have his customers pay 60 days late. And he would hire people if his clients were paying him on time.
"Going from 30 to 60 days (in not being paid) would kill me, but another 10 to 15 percent increase in taxes would just be uncomfortable," Gnatt said.
Walker said he'd like to fix both problems because his goal was to help businesses create 250,000 jobs. Those jobs would come 10, 15, and 20 at a time and not in groups of 100.
"So we need to be mindful to what happens to small and mid-sized businesses," Walker said. "And that's where the job growth is."
Walker said the forum helped him connect with job creators to understand what issues they are facing.
"Gnatt told Walker he would rather have his taxes raised to 20 percent rather than have his customers pay 60 days late. And he would hire people if his clients were paying him on time." So, how exactly would increasing his taxes force GE to pay him any faster than they already are??? And this guy runs a small business??? No wonder he isn’t finding any easy financing for his operations - I wouldn’t want to take a chance on this guy either with that kind of business sense or rational! Obviously, this Gnatt guy is some kind of liberal plant, as his raise taxes argument makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever. So what exactly is the ‘ear-full’ that business leaders gave to Walker anyway? Come on!!!
Again, I’m not sure what the government can do to remedy that problem, if you could even call this a legitimate problem.
During the housing boom, it was common for those choosing to build to use foreign manufactured building materials, such a Chinese drywall/sheetrock, because they could build a large house for the same money vs a smaller home featuring American produced components. The same can be said of our auto industry. American consumerist greed has done far more damage to our country than the so-called top 1%’s greed could ever hope to accomplish. OWS and the 99% are targeting the wrong people. Instead of going after the rich, we should be going after our neighbor for buying a foreign non-union labor built Prius instead of an American union labor made Volt. And yet, no one seems to get it. In fact, the class warfare thing is just dividing the country and adding to the problem more than it’s helping. Americans need to regain their patriotism and stop being greedy hypocrites when it comes to their shopping/spending habits. Only then will we ever truly start to reverse the problem! Anything less is just going to be a temporary band-aid or artificially induced bubble that will eventually burst. We need a solid industrial/manufacturing base. And we need to re-establish that base while we still hold our consumer power!
And there are going to be people out there who say, well, of course those people should do the retraining, this job is better than no job, but I think that's a cop-out attitude that dismisses the real issue.
There are lots of people with a college/advanced degree that have never found a decent/professional job. The reality is that many college degrees really don't prepare people to do the jobs that are most in demand right now. It might make sense for people to consider taking some classes to broaden their skillsets so they can apply for the jobs that employers are having difficulty finding people for (and aren't weeding out the long term unemployed).
Of course, it's easier for the OWS protesters to blame CEOs than take a little personal responsibility.
Is it a form of discrimination to consider only employees with college degrees? Is it a form of discrimination to not consider graduates from schools that don't have the preferred accreditations? Employers have to deal with the floods of resumes in some manner. Weeding out the long term unemployed can save lots of man-hours...
I'm not sure that I'd agree that losing one's job isn't the employees fault or something that is beyond the employee's control. In some cases this can be true, but more often than not when companies choose who to lay off and who to keep, they tend to keep the workers that provide the most 'bang for the buck', and cut those who don't. You are correct that employers are shrinking their talent pool. That's a risk that an employer has to consider when choosing to adopt a policy of weeding out the current unemployed as applicants. When employers are seeking people with specialized skills, it makes sense to consider as many applicants as possible. When employers are seeking people with more common skills, weeding out the currently unemployed can be an effective tool for them.
So the municipal union employee gave back their 2.7% wage increase? How? Are they doing it like when Walker gave back close to $.5M in salary and benefits when he was Milwaukee Co. executive? Or, are you referring to how they are 'giving back' via the 5.9% mandatory contributions to their health insurance and pension benefits, which really isn't a give back at all - it's a pay cut because their bosses, the people, are currently facing historical unemployment and underemployment in a sour economy? When the overall economy is doing poorly, it’s only natural for public employees to expect pay decreases, as the source of their pay is dependent upon the macro-economy. It’s different in the private sector because while the overall macro-economy may be doing poorly, certain businesses could be doing well or even growing because of their product and specific customer bases. That’s just part of the risk you face when deciding to become a public employee. There is no level of expected ‘fairness,’ – that’s why they’re called public servants. They serve at the WILL of the public and for compensation as decided by the public via their political representatives, of which the public employees are just as able to vote for as anyone else. But government shouldn’t have to borrow money or raise taxes beyond the status quo just to make payroll – doing so is fundamentally wrong!
Thank you so much for being one the very few that actually seems to get it, even if you may not always practice accordingly. I go out of my way to buy American and have done so my entire life. In fact, I still have and use my Curtis Mathes televisions that were manufactured in Texas back in the early ‘80’s!
Discrimination of any kind shouldn’t be tolerated in any way shape or form. It’s time to get rid of racial and gender based affirmative action programs and quota based systems, as they are only acting to perpetuate a form of what has become known as ‘reverse discrimination.’ Regardless of whether or not the long term unemployed are truly being discriminated against solely on such grounds, the fact remains that unemployment and underemployment would still be historically high and unacceptable. Instead of focusing on trying to fix a mere ‘symptom’ of the problem, why not concentrate and focus our efforts and resources on curing the disease? Wouldn’t that make more sense at this time?
Too much emphasis is placed upon paper instead of actual demonstrated skill and ability!
A majority of the problem you describe about wage stagnation can be ultimately linked to federal reserve policy of keeping interest rates artificially low. You know that chart that Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and the Daily Kos just loves to show indicating the income disparity that presently exists in this country? Well, what they never honestly talk about is how/why it got that way. If we go back to the early ‘80’s, when according to that chart, the disparity was not as extreme, what kind of interest rates did we have? Here’s an example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Dpg8h0zeM&feature=related Where are interest rates today? Coincidence – I think not! But Maddow, Schultz, and Kos won’t make the connection for you. But why? Because lower interest rates mean that we can actually spend more of the money we earn on actual stuff as opposed to interest. And more stuff means that we have a supposedly higher standard of living. And people naturally expanded this mindset/philosophy outward until they started buying cheaper foreign produced goods over American goods, thus destroying our manufacturing base. Obviously, when the people were given a choice, they chose wanting more over being fair about what they wanted, didn’t they.
If the liberals would just be honest about the situation, we could come together to correct the situation. But instead, all they want to do is blame the top 1% for in a ll reality being smarter with handling money than the rest of us. And what good does that accomplish? If you really want to fix the economy, you need to fix monetary policy and trade. But doing so will mean not having as much cheap goods as we presently have available to us. And many big interests, WalMart, China, etc., have become vested in this kind of business model, so it won't be easy to fix. And taking away cheap good and cheap money from people won't be easy either. It's definitely not something you can do cold turkey without causing chaos. When it comes down to it, people just need to start realizing that if they really want a flat screen TV, perhaps they need to start working and saving up to get it, instead of merely putting it on the credit card so they can have it now as opposed to having to wait and working for it!
Spoken like a true Nissan/Toyota/Honda/etc. owner! Good for you! If what you say is true, then please provide us with a representative example and concrete facts to support and back up a logical analysis and conclusion. Until you can do this, I suggest you leave the real discussion for the adults! You can go back to marching on Wall Street or what ever it is you do!
Why would a businessman ever even suggest raising taxes, even in the context of giving an "apples to oranges" comparison, as you suggest? Where's the logic in doing so, and what's the take away point exactly? His main point appears to be that he's not getting paid quickly enough by his business customers. So, in proposing solutions that government can implement to help his problem so he can create more jobs he brings up raising taxes? COME ON!!! The obvious solution to his problem is that he needs to dictate more forceful contracts with his customers, find new customers that will accept his contract terms, or restructure the other aspects of his business around the reality of the delayed payments. Can I now charge him $50k for a consulting fee? It's no wonder this guy can't secure any financing! He's obviously not that bright when it comes to business!
Cash only is the best way to go! However, I did end up upsetting the car dealership when I literally walked into the showroom with a briefcase full of hundred dollar bills to purchase my last car with - they actually proceeded in checking every single bill with one of those anti-counterfeit markers! I was with the dealership's cashier for close to two hours and had every other customer backed up waiting on my transaction to close! Oh well, they got over it - and it's a great story to share :-)