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posted by takyon on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the pressure-relief dept.

Following a number of CEOs pulling out of President Trump's American Manufacturing Council and Strategic and Policy Forum, President Trump tweeted that the initiatives have been ended:

Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!

The CEOs of Merck, Intel, 3M, and other companies had already left:

3M Co. Chief Executive Officer Inge Thulin stepped down from the White House's manufacturing council, adding to the corporate exodus as the backlash grows to President Donald Trump's ambivalent response to racially-charged violence in Virginia over the weekend.

Thulin joined the White House panel in January "to advocate for policies that align with our values and encourage even stronger investment and job growth -- in order to make the United States stronger, healthier and more prosperous," the CEO said Wednesday in a statement tweeted by 3M. "After careful consideration, I believe the initiative is no longer an effective vehicle for 3M to advance these goals."

Update: The members of the Strategic and Policy Forum reportedly disbanded the group before President Trump's tweet:

The quick sequence began late Wednesday morning when Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group and one of Mr. Trump's closest confidants in the business community, organized a conference call for members of the president's Strategic and Policy Forum. On the call, the chief executives of some of the largest companies in the country debated how to proceed. After a discussion among a dozen prominent C.E.O.s, the decision was made to abandon the group altogether, said people with knowledge of the details of the call.

Also at Bloomberg:

Trump made the announcement on Twitter, less than an hour after one of the groups was said to be planning to inform the White House that it would break up. [...] Trump appeared to be making an effort to get ahead of the news as the councils began to disintegrate. The strategy forum, which is led by Blackstone Group LP's Stephen Schwarzman, planned to inform the White House Wednesday before making the announcement public, according to another person familiar with the matter, who wasn't authorized to discuss the news publicly.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by n1 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:16PM (4 children)

    by n1 (993) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:16PM (#554880) Journal

    Sources for 'everyone else getting back to work' in recent months?

    BLS data from earlier this month indicate things are roughly in-line with the last 12 months of growth.

    Employment in food services and drinking places rose by 53,000 in July. The industry has
    added 313,000 jobs over the year.

    Professional and business services added 49,000 jobs in July, in line with its average
    monthly job gain over the prior 12 months.

    In July, health care employment increased by 39,000, with job gains occurring in ambulatory
    health care services (+30,000) and hospitals (+7,000). Health care has added 327,000 jobs
    over the past year.

    Employment in mining was essentially unchanged in July (+1,000). From a recent low in
    October 2016 through June, the industry had added an average of 7,000 jobs per month.

    Employment in other major industries, including construction, manufacturing, wholesale
    trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities,
    and government, showed little change over the month.

    [...]Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 65 cents, or 2.5
    percent. In July, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory
    employees increased by 6 cents to $22.10.

    https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm [bls.gov]

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:28PM (3 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:28PM (#554888) Homepage Journal

    Reread that last paragraph. That is not something to be scoffed at. It was rapidly going the other direction or sitting pat for most of Obama's two terms.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by n1 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)

      by n1 (993) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:23PM (#554959) Journal

      https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/united-states-wages.png?s=unitedstawag&v=201708081602v&d1=20120101&d2=20171231 [cloudfront.net]

      https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/united-states-wages.png?s=unitedstawag&v=201708081602v&d1=20070101&d2=20171231 [cloudfront.net]

      I agree with your original point about the lack of good jobs during the Obama administration, but even if there is a positive change with this new administration, it is too early to say. There are many less jobs in construction now than this time last year, but there are more jobs in other areas.

      These charts from BLS data indicate there's been little change in direction or momentum, even if you go back to the 70's... That's not to say I put a lot of weight into the validity of BLS data, but the same applies now as before.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:19AM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:19AM (#555226) Homepage Journal

        Mostly the BLS stats are painting an extremely small portion of the picture. Yes, they can tell you some of the jobs that were created but they're by no means comprehensive and say nothing at all about unemployment, which is a critical part of any discussion on jobs. Under the tail end of Bush and most of Obama we lost so many jobs that a large percent of the work force just gave up even trying to find work at all and still haven't returned to work to date. Obama could have done many things to fix this problem by incentivizing job creation in different ways; instead he stuck to the traditional progressive playbook. Which is to say he had little to zero effect on the jobs market throughout his entire presidency. He basically let it freewheel when he wasn't putting minor speed bumps in the road.

        Now Trump is a cheeto-headed dipshit but the fiscal ideas he's trying to get implemented will create jobs if he can ever get his own party to quit stabbing him in the back. Mind you he'll also be screwing the little guy in numerous ways to the favor of big business but at least he'll be screwing employed people.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:45PM (#554973)

      As history has shown, people often attribute positive outcomes to the puppet of the day without doing any further digging. Most economic trends are dictated years in advance, but people like yourself are stuck in correlation == causation.