The theme of the breakfast, although no one phrased it as such, was Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign promise: To get government off the backs of the American people. And business.
Michael Aronstein, the president and CEO of Marketfield Asset Management spoke by telephone, he summarized the Obama administration's policy as "closing down opportunity instead of opening it up."
They're making things worse.
A couple of months ago Vice President Biden was touting "Recovery Summer." Biden might want to give Tom Gimbel a call. He's the president and CEO of LaSalle Network, a staffing a recruiting firm who told us "a jobless recovery is not a recovery at all." Illinois' unemployment rate has been over 10 percent for months; in Cook County alone, 265,000 people are collecting unemployment benefits.
Worse, Gimbel says, temp-to-perm hiring is drastically down. I was taken on as a temporary worker ago in 2000, they liked what they saw and hired me full-time--ten years later I'm still working there. But now fewer people are getting the opportunity I received. Businesses are especially cautious hiring workers in difficult economic times, temp-to-perm is considered a safer process to hire. But not safe enough, I guess.
But capitalism still manages moves on, which is why Joel's brother, Nathan, changed careers--he previously worked for Oracle. He opened his own business four months ago, the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen in San Francisco. Nathan went from working for someone else to hiring others--he has created 18 jobs so far.
San Francisco is not considered a business-friendly environment, so it did not surprise me when Nathan told us, "Our restaurant opening was delayed four months because of an inconsistency between the building department and the fire department over the material we used for a wall." Yes, 18 jobs have been created, but they would have been created four months earlier had the two departments worked in unison.
Lettuce Entertain You is a Chicago-based food service firm which operates over 70 restaurants in eleven different states. Jay Stieber is the executive vice president and general counsel for them. He decried the anticipated expenses surrounding ObamaCare and the legislation's 1099 rule. Union card check, which Stieber says is on the backburner of Congress, is something Lettuce and virtually every other business opposes. But the incumbent, Democrat Jan Schakowsky--supports it. It's a jobs killer. Card check is part of the grossly-misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, and that bill contains a binding arbitration clause that can kill a business.
Simply put--in my opinion Schakowsky is more interested in her union cronies rather than creating jobs.
Schakowsky has championed her role in passing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Rich Woldenberg, the chairman of Learning Resources, related his experience with having the expense--legal counsel, package redesign and the like--in adding consumer warnings that now need to be included in rock samples and fossil samples he sells because they might contain lead. They should not be eaten! I mean, sheesh, even children know not to snack on rocks. As for fossils, well, that trilobite from the Paleozoic Era just might give you food poisoning, right?
As for that act, before its passage, Woldenberg said., "We had to master 80 pages of rules." Now they have to master--if such a thing is possible--3,000 pages.
Robert Enriquez, the Republican candidate for Secretary of State, knocked the Democratic incumbent, Jesse White, for taking pride in running the nation's largest SoS office. Illinois is the nation's fifth most populous state--something is wrong, here, folks. Enriquez pledges to make his office more friendly to business if he wins.
As for Pollak, if he prevails I will have a congressman representing me who is on the side of the job creators. We don't have that now.
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