Geithner Takes Tax Payer Funded Trip to Swiss Retreat

What is U.S. Secretary of Treasury doing hobnobbing in Davos Switzerland? He's being interviewed on stage by Charlie Rose of PBS fame. Can't they do that right here at home? How does it look to Americans that a high ranking U.S. official and an employee of PBS - BTW, both funded by tax payer money - are going to a meeting which is essentially limited to rich and powerful people? Not sure this is what the framers of our constitution had in mind when they set out to create the new nation.

By the way if you want to read what Mr. Geithner had to say, here's a link. It's not pretty. He essentially doesn't have much to say about how to generate jobs though he's very optimistic about U.S. growth.

Oregon Invests $ 500 Million Pension & School Funds in Leveraged Buyout Giant

From today's paper: "Oregon's pension and common school funds are entrusting another big chunk of capital to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., the leveraged buyout giant that has been a longtime, successful and sometimes controversial manager of Oregon pension money since the state's first such KKR investment in 1981."

Source: Oregon Live 

KKR is also the firm that has repeatedly taken companies private and laid off thousands of workers. Read more  about KKR.

I'd like to know if Oregon citizens believe this is a safe and prudent way to invest their public money.

Did you know: 42% of U.S. workers get no sick days

42% of the workers in the U.S. private sector are unable to take a paid day off when they're ill.

That's 44 million workers without that benefit include. (Only 4.2 million of these have not been on the job long enough to be eligible for paid sick days.)


Source: Institute for Women's Policy Research

A Global Fight for Jobs

Tonight President Obama articulated in his State of the Union speech what is at stake: a global fight for jobs.  Outsourcing American jobs by American companies for over 2 decades has created a tipping point for the American middle class.  In order to restore American prosperity, jobs must be created here.  That's not to say that no American company should hire employees overseas - that would be absurd.  But jobs that can be done in America, and be done cost competitively, should be done in America. Do we really need H&R Block accountants abroad doing our taxes? Or radiologists looking at our X-rays? Or American Express credit card service representatives?  American wages are competitive with those abroad.

It is time for American companies to stop taking the easy road and to start looking in their own backyard for employees.