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Delaware elites posturing in public while I get fries with that

This is actually the problem with corporatist government and centralized planning by elites who will never miss a meal in their entire lives.

The News Journal (which at least acknowledged its conflict of interest in both sponsoring and writing a puff piece on the same event) "reports" on Wednesdy's "job forum" at UD.

Here's the real takeaway from the event, the list of panelists:

Governor Jack Markell
His record:  thousands of jobs lost on his watch; millions wasted in bad loans/lost tax revenues to Fisker, Bloom, Bluewater; tens of millions spent on corporate welfare; no raises ever proposed for State employees; government via illegal task forces and secret AG opinions; gutting of Coastal Zone Act for fun and profit; don't even get me started on his education "reform"
State Board of Education Chair Teri Gray
Her record as a Markell appointee:  well, basically, there isn't one, because the current State Board of Education has no real power, no real education policy-making authority, and when it does vote, it votes exactly like the Secretary of Education tells it to
Nicholas Marsini, PNC Delaware regional president
His reason for being on the panel:  PNC co-sponsored the event; large banks and financial organizations actually own the State of Delaware and the Delaware Democratic Party; what banks want in Delaware from the government they get, because they paid for it.
Robert Atkins, President of Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
His credentials:  another "President" of yet another "Foundation" that exists (you guessed it) off corporate and government funding to make recommendations that are, you know, palatable to corporations and the government.
Robert Schwartz, Harvard Graduate School of Education
His institution, Harvard, recently said that 85% of its applicants (of whom it only accept 15%) are fully qualified to go to Harvard, and where the median grade for all classes is an A-, certainly has the foundation for discussing real-world kinds of educational issues.
Now let's think about who wasn't sitting at the table:
1.  No actual representative of a real Delaware-owned business with employment needs.
2.  No actual representative of Delaware public or higher education (to include Del Tech, the main purveyor of vocational training in the State.)
3.  No representative whatever from a labor union or trade organization.
4.  Nobody whose business depends on hiring low-wage, unskilled, or semi-skilled workers.
5.  No students, no graduates, no workers, no unemployed workers.
6.  Nobody who could actually tell you jack about the process of being laid off and retrained in Delaware.
7.  Nobody from the General Assembly who would actually have to craft any laws or policies to change things.
8.  Nobody from any state or urban area or even foreign country who actually has a workable plan in place to deal with these problems.
9.  No actual economist.

I could go on, but you get the point.  What we have here is the usual corporatist elite mentally masturbating in public about what would serve its interests best, in an atmosphere completely devoid of ANY actual expertise about the subject at hand.

And this (even allowing for both its co-sponsorhip and Democratic Party house organ status) is supposed to be news?

Comments

delacrat said…
10. No one who must answer, yes, to the question on a job application: "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?"
delacrat said…
11. No one who's had a real job in years, if ever.

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