September 25, 2012

Is Gallup biased? It's Chairman isn't.

I stumbled upon a a book that I haven't read yet, entitled "The Coming Jobs War".  If the description of the book at Amazon does the book justice, not only does Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup seem to not exhibit a bias in his beliefs, he actually gets it about America.

Here's the description and why I think it's so important;
Drawing on 75 years of Gallup studies and his own perspective as the company’s chairman and CEO, Jim Clifton explains why jobs are the new global currency for leaders. More than peace or money or any other good, the business, government, military, city, and village leaders who can create good jobs will own the future.

The problem is that leaders don’t know how to create jobs – especially in America. What they should do is recognize that the world is in a war for jobs. It seems that leadership has lost the will to win, especially in America, but this is a competition for our lives.

To win, leaders need to compete. Everyone does. The public school system needs to inculcate kids with the knowledge they’ll need to compete in the jobs war. The business community needs to double the psychological engagement of workers so that it can compete with cheaper labor. The healthcare system must stop wasting the resources that we need to spend on job competition. Society needs to realize that entrepreneurs, not government, are the source of new jobs and put all its energy behind them. Perhaps most importantly, leaders need to recognize universities, mentors, and especially cities as a supercollider for job creation.

If that can be done – and it can be done; leaders have done it before – new good jobs will result. There’s not moment to waste: the war has already begun.
(Emphasis added)

That seems like it's worth a read. While Clifton in the description doesn't specifically address Obama's leadership, it seems from the highlighted content, that inferring that Obama is culpable is entirely reasonable.


UPDATED (to match here): The more important idea though is that one fiscal conservatives harp on all the time - you need a great economy to support anything else you want to do as a nation, be it to attract talent, have a strong military, continually innovate.  Jobs isn't actually the answer, it's a symptom of a strong economy.  A strong economy requires a business-friendly environment.  That requires things like tax simplification, less onerous regulation, and competitive business and capital gains taxes, maybe tax incentives for R&D (not applied selectively) and a truly open market for labor as opposed to minimum wages and a union-oriented playing field.  With all of those sorts of changes, jobs will come as a natural result. That seems to be the case that Mitt Romney has been unable to make in any sort of way that will break through.

In the end, that's the case the American voters need to understand, and it doesn't matter if Mitt Romney makes it or someone else does - the case needs to be made and it needs to be made quickly, before the national job market - really, the economy - is gone.

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