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"Make Way" by shoothead on flickr. Quack, Quack, Quack.
In anticipation of the President’s speech about jobs, and with a dismal NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, USAToday asked some CEOs (now where they found this bunch is beyond me, but…) about what they thought Obama should do.
CEOS give ideas on what Obama should do about jobs
Some of the responses were actually sort of interesting, but my absolute favorite came from John Schiller, chairman and CEO of Energy XXI, who said, “if the government would get out of the way, from a regulation standpoint, and let us [XXI] do what we do good you’ll see us continue to hire and grow this economy.”
Now, from the Aunt Toby, Grammarian standpoint, we will not discuss the phrase ‘do what we do good,’ ok? Doing good is not the same as ‘doing well’ but perhaps Mr. Schiller is trying to get in a twofer here. What I decided to do was to actually test this.
The phrase ‘you’ll see us continue to hire’ needs examination. “You will see us continue to hire” – this means to me that Energy XXI is already hiring (hoorah for Energy XXI!) and Mr. Schiller is saying that they will keep right on hiring and will ‘grow this economy’ (all by themselves? Amazing).
So, being the annoying person that I am, I went to their website. Surely, they must have a career section and be showing all of these juicy, well-paying jobs for which they are recruiting (i.e., ‘continue to hire’), right?
Energy XXI Career Search
So, I go there and I do a search using ‘all departments’. Nyet.
So, I think perhaps that feature doesn’t work this way and I try other departments, especially the easy ones like accounting,
Nyet. No jobs. Energy XXI is not hiring for anything.
OK, so perhaps Energy XXI uses one of the sites on the internet to hire and I’m just being an old (or quasi-old) fuddy-duddy.
I go to Monster.com, which I think is one of the biggest recruitment sites on the ‘innertubes’. You can search by company there, so that if you are lusting after a job with Consolidated Ratsnest, Inc., you can go straight there instead of just wading through all the junior account clerk jobs at every other ratsnest in the country listed on Monster.com.
And….zippo.
No jobs. Energy XXI is not recruiting – not hiring (well, unless you are the son of one of Schiller’s golf buddies, I suppose).
Mr. Schiller, you’re full of s**t.
37 Comments
Here are some of the CEOs who claim ‘government uncertainty’ makes it impossible for them to hire new employees to meet nonexistent consumer demand:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/boehner-encourages-members-to-attend-obama-speech/2011/09/08/gIQANE7hCK_blog.html
Teddy – what IS this ‘uncertain business environment’ supposedly created by the Obama Administration? Hello? Was the business environment created by the Bush/Cheney Administration and the Financial Industry in the 10 years before less uncertain? When we look at the last 10-15 years, businesses were shedding jobs like snakes shedding their skins and I do not recall any whiny ass complaints from business about ‘uncertain business environment’ making them shed jobs, transfer jobs overseas, outsource or not hire. Hello? This is total bunk.
What is uncertain about the business environment, Aunt Toby, is that a Democrat was elected president in 2008.
tweeted and recommended toby — thank you
Business was good under Clinton (a -D President), wasn’t it?
If things are so certain you should easily be able to tell us what the mandatory employer-sponsored health insurance cost will be per employee in two years.
If things are so certain you should easily be able to tell us what any given company’s carbon cap will be in two years.
If things are so certain you should easily be able to tell us whether proposed regulation on “particulate matter” (dust) will pass and impact farmers.
People theoretically get hired when there is demand. There is no demand because people are scared s**tless because they’ve either lost their jobs or people they know have lost their jobs. Or they’ve lost their homes. When people are scared and don’t have money, they don’t spend money. and there is no demand. So people don’t get hired. Now, businesses are hiring a lot of people – in other countries, but not here. But we are in a death spiral here, people – lay people off/don’t hire…people don’t spend…no demand…companies don’t hire/lay people off…people don’t spend…no demand. In order to stop this, SOMEONE or SOME ORGANIZATION MUST START HIRING AND PAYING DECENT WAGES. Guaranteeing some sort of cost based on regulation as a reason not to hire is whiny ass BS.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks, Toby. [And Teddy.]
Sure do wish those sleuths in the MSM would follow your lead.
Hell, you’ve done all the work; all they have to do is plagiarize.
Short and sweet, Aunt Toby.
Fine piece of detective work.
Recommended.
thank you toby, recc’d.
Toby, You are one heck of a reporter and investigator.
You are correct. I have been searching for those jobs for 3 years now and not a thing. What I have determined is that corporations are playing the repug hostage game. They won’t move until they push government to remove any and all regulations, minimum wage requirements, safety requirements, and all taxes.
In case you didn’t see it the Longshoreman are striking, especially at export docks. Here is the link, but I do not trust the reporting. Well, you know how that reporting goes.
http://news.yahoo.com/longshoremen-storm-wash-port-over-labor-dispute-152446496.html
Thanks Toby,
Recommended. Mr Osterity should quit the cigarettes, he continues to sound more hollow and breathless. Or maybe that wasn’t lung capacity issues.
Good points. Who runs out hiring people without knowing what its going to cost, particularly when demand is off?
Well, Toby, you’re absolutely right about how businessmen running existing (but struggling) companies aren’t hiring because their current (probably reduced) labor force is adequate to meet what little demand there is for their product, but that’s only one piece of the picture.
Another piece is the businessmen running existing (and growing, if slowly) companies who aren’t hiring even though they really could use more labor to meet the demand because… (?)
Another piece is the investors sitting on stacks of liquidity who aren’t putting up the funding to create new businesses because… (?)
Because… they’re all a bunch of whiny ass BSers?
Hiya Toby.
How are you doing floodwise?
No, actually their telling the truth…sort of, in their own twisted way. What they really mean is that hiring will continue at the current pace; they’re just not saying that it’s zero.
Not necessarily because he is a democrat. With certainty, because he is considered a “Black” democrat. The only uncertainty in the business realm is in figuring out what strategy will be successful in defeating Obama in the next election. This is all about Racism people. The one thing it ain’t about is the economy.
I would be willing to bet, IN MOST cases regulations CREATE jobs not the other way around
the epa for instance, creates jobs, there has to be higher technology to create cleaner emmisions
If one bothered to check the facts (I know, wapo check facts?) you’d see that it is reported everywhere that Gibson Guitar is being investigated for violating the Lacey act by importing endangered species to build their guitars (http://understory.ran.org/2011/09/08/gibson-guitars-is-playing-politics-to-the-detriment-of-jobs-and-forests/). So the “great mystery” surrounding the investigation of Gibson is not such a mystery after all.
Yeah, but it’s the wrong jobs. Those jobs tend to be relatively high paying, with decent benefits. We need more minimum wage jobs, preferably in environments that will kill the worker before he/she can collect Social Security.
Boxturtle (Odd that no GOPer has suggested cutting the minimum wage yet)
Thanks for the post, Aunt Toby.
It’s really not racism, though there may be part. It’s really all about there being a Democrat in office.
Yeah they create jobs for more government workers in the regulatory agencies. As for green jobs, let me just say Solyndra….
Was anyone there talking about actual existent consumer demand?
Think of how much economic activity would be generated by eliminating government regulations on the sale and consumption of alcohol.
Then we can deregulate the production, sale, and consumption of marijuana.
Then let’s move on to eliminating all government regulations around abortion.
See, deregulation is fun!
The GOP is loudly chanting “job killing regulations.
We can also call them “life and economy saving checks and balances.”
What is the true cost of job where the worker faces higher health and safety risks?
What is an economy where the banks need taxpayer bailouts because of a gutted safety and soundness regulatory scheme?
Also too, the jobs are in the wrong place. They want them offshore.
Shorter John Schiller:
“If you’ll let us give consumers and workers a bigger hosing than we’re already giving them, we just might hire more hamburger flippers and janitors”
In reply to TobyWolin @ 3:44 pm
Whiny ass BS? No, they are neither cowboys nor crybabies, they are the fruit of capitalist society – “productive” deceivers.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
My boss (a Chinese woman, 72) has said to me, REALLY, that if they lowered the minimum wage and eliminated having to pay overtime, she’d hire more people.
Duhhhhh.
Which just illustrates that, really, asking corporate execs what to do about the economy/jobs crisis is a little like asking Joseph Mengele for an opinion on human-subjects ethics.
They’ve all read the same memo, generated by Rush I believe. Even the rank and file. The BBC had a “small business owner” on to talk about job creation. He kept saying “government uncertainty” was the reason he couldn’t hire. The interviewer asked him what he meant; he hemmed and hawed and finally said it was uncertainty about Obamacare. The interviewer was gentle with him but suggested that it’s been law for a while and can’t you look up what the regulations are? No, he couldn’t because he had run out of GOP talking points.
That’s the problem with the D establishment. They always assume that the people are on their side on the issues, and therefore they don’t have to reinforce ideas such as, for example, pollution is bad for you, and eliminating the FAA will cause planes to crash. While the R’s are busy convincing the feeble minded (too big of a group) that pollution tastes yummy and that the FAA wants to rape you in your sleep.
To make the public understand this, requires messaging and repetition. And the D’s don’t do this.
Progressives to obama: Get out of the way!
Yeah, Corp Land:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/TomR/an-admittedly-simplistic-_b_947850_106240726.html
“it’s been law for a while and can’t you look up what the regulations are? “
Where?
Ahem. If there is no “uncertainty” then that should be a really easy question.
Where can a prospective employer go to find how what his mandated health care cost per employee will be in two or three years?