Let’s suppose for a moment the President took a different tack in fighting the unemployment problem in America. Suppose he went to the underworld of organized crime and put together a committee of experts from America’s crime families.

Big Vinny from New York- “You could hire people to rob banks and then the bankers would have to hire more bank guards. Then you could do the same thing at the airports.”

Mickey the Chiseler from Philadelphia- “Vinny, what are you, stupid or something? Rob banks with guns? Forget about it, nobody robs banks with guns no more. They works from the inside now. You go shooting guns in a bank you might hurt some friends of mine.”

Joey Scars from Kansas City- “Suppose we make loans to help Americans make it through the tough times, and we charge them, I dunno, 300 percent interest?”

Big Vinny from New York-”Now wait a minute there, Joe. I own bank stocks and Visa stock and you ain’t gonna do nothing to hurt my rackets or the undertaker is gonna have new customers.”

I suppose after a couple of meetings they would throw up their hands and turn in their expense vouchers. Being career criminals they would have more profitable activities to pursue, besides sitting on a committee for chump change, and would turn in their final report.

Dear Mr. President,

The committee members would like to take this opportunity to thank you for this chance to serve your administration. Too often those of us in the waste disposal business or the vending machine industry are treated as second-class citizens because of the nature of our operations.

After several meetings, however, we have come to the sad conclusion that America’s underworld has little to offer in solving America’s unemployment crisis. This is due in part to corporate America having usurped all of our traditional rackets. What loan shark can compete today with a TitleMax or a Payday Lender?

Why hijack a shipment of liquor when you can use a hostile takeover and obtain the whole company? Why rob a bank when you can own one and run it out of business and then buy another? This is a time of growth and change in the underworld; it is a time when America’s crime families are trying to go legit but are being passed by corporate America going the other way.

Yours truly,

We’d rather not sign our names on the grounds that we might incriminate ourselves.

So the President had another idea, hire the best and the brightest from corporate America’s CEOs to see if they could help to double America’s exports and create new jobs. The president has founded an Export Council and staffed it with his dream team of corporate America’s best job creators.

“Obama also praised the June 30 World Trade Organization ruling that Airbus SAS benefited from illegal subsidies, at the expense of Boeing, which called the decision a ‘sweeping legal victory.’

“‘That practice was unfair and hurt American workers,’ the President said. ‘This ruling will keep the playing field level and boost American jobs.’”

Then Obama named Boeing CEO Jim McNerney to be chairman of the President’s Export Council. Boeing is America’s number two defense contractor so they know how to move product. At Boeing they call their strategy “Offloading.” Rather than build an airplane they buy components from vendors overseas and put them together. At Boeing, 65 to 70 percent of an aircraft is built with parts outsourced from vendors. Last year Boeing cited delays in its Dreamliner project as testing “the wisdom of heavy reliance on outsourced labor.”

Also serving on the committee is Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally. Ford is the most profitable automobile manufacturer in the country and has maintained its profits by reducing its American work force by fifty percent over the last ten years. In 2008 Ford spent $3 billion investing in Mexico and created 4,500 new jobs for Mexican workers.

While Ford has closed four plants in the United States, it has re-opened its Cuautitlan plant to build 2011 Fiestas and added 2,000 more jobs in Mexico. Great pick, Mr. Obama, he’s a guy that knows how to create jobs even if his geography is a little faulty.

Archer Daniels Midland CEO Patricia Woertz has joined the export council, too. Now they have knowledge of how to create jobs! In 2005 they were named in a lawsuit in Federal District Court for using child labor and child trafficking at their plant in the Ivory Coast. The children were forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings.

ADM is a heavyweight when it comes to Washington campaign donations. Whether it is charges of price fixing or EPA fines for air pollution, ADM is at the forefront.

Also serving are:
Ivan Seidenburg, CEO of Verizon Communications
Walt Disney CEO, Robert Iger
Ursula Burns of Xerox
MetLife Chairman, Robert Henrikson
Dow Chemical CEO, Andrew Liveris
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Kindler
United Parcel Service CEO, Scott Davis
Dow Corning CEO, Stephanie Burns
Ernst & Young LLP Chairman and CEO, James Turley
G&C Equipment Corp. President, Glen Hale (suppliers of construction equipment to the federal government)
Magno International LP President, Raul Pedraza (Freight forwarding and customs brokerage. Do you need a container ship to bring your product in from China?)

This is President Obama’s dream team to build exports and create jobs. The U.S. signed free trade agreements with Colombia in 2006 and Panama in 2007 as U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Congress the administration was still working to resolve concerns from Democratic lawmakers and labor unions that the trade agreements fail to align labor, tax and environmental policies.

“Labor has not delayed our move,” Kirk told the Senate Finance Committee on March 3. “But labor does have a seat at the table with this administration.”

Yes, it has one seat and one seat only, United Association General President, William Hite. One seat representing labor and nineteen seats representing corporate America. It becomes a cynical joke because their goal is not to increase employment but to increase profits and to do that you outsource or limit the number of employees hired. Personally I think the mob would do a better job because once again Obama’s Hope and Change is false hope and no change.

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