Chief executive officer

Senator Johnson ~ ‘We Are Losing Our Freedoms’

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WND | January 28 2013

Chief executive officer
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he chose to run for the Senate because of the passage of Obamacare, which he called the “greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime.”

Johnson, who owns a small business in Oshkosh, told the Atlas Society, a D.C.-based think tank, that he believes Americans are like a bunch of frogs in a pot of water.

“The pot of water is being brought up to a boil. I think we’re losing freedoms across the board,” Johnson said.

According to the senator, there are two tipping points that the American people must be wary of: the financial tipping point and the cultural tipping point.

The financial tipping point, he explained, is when the debt crisis hits a point where world creditors will look at the U.S. and no longer loan it any money.

He considers the cultural tipping point to be the dependency and entitlement mentality to which many Americans have fallen victim.

“When we shift to a culture where people are just saying, ‘I’m happy to sit back and let the government provide me with things,’ that becomes a very dangerous point in time for this country,” Johnson said.

See video clip of Johnson.

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A Generation of CEOs Who Don’t Know How to Raise Wages

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By Dean Baker | Nation Of Change
October 25 2011

Bureau of Labor StatisticsThose who follow the rants from our business leaders and their allies in politics and the media have been struck by a disquieting cry in recent months. We have been repeatedly told that, even though we have more than 25 million people unemployed or underemployed, businesses are unable to find qualified workers.

For example, last week New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman took us to Illinois where Doug Oberhelman, the CEO of Caterpillar one of the largest companies in the country, complained that he could not find qualified hourly workers for his manufacturing facilities. Oberhelman went on to complain that he also could not find engineering service technicians or and even welders.

Friedman also recounted a conversation with Chicago’s new mayor, former Obama chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. According to Friedman, Emanual complained about “staring right into the whites of the eyes of the skills shortage.” Friedman recounts a story from Emanuel about two young CEOs in the healthcare software business who claimed that they have 50 job openings today, but can’t find the people.

There are many other accounts like the ones in Friedman’s column of businesses who find their growth prospects stunted by their inability to hire good workers. There are two parts to this story that should bother people.

First, in spite of all the complaints in the media about businesses not being able to find good workers, this problem doesn’t seem to show up in the data. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall ratio of job openings to existing jobs is just 2.3 percent. This is down by almost a third from its pre-recession level.

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