Host Neal Asbury opened his nationally syndicated “Neal Asbury’s Made in America” show on Radio America (now on 48 stations), by relating a Wall Street Journal news story that tracked a growing rise in ER visits despite the promise of Obamacare that the Affordable Care Act would dramatically reduce ER visits. Yet, another sign that Obamacare is an ill-conceived program.
Returning to Made in America was Peter Morici, an economist and professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, who confirmed that inflation is upon us, as evidenced by the rise in food prices and normal household staples.
“Keeping inflation down won’t help create more housing demand, especially when inflation is hurting the very people that are prime customers. Single family home sales are down and apartment construction is up because people can’t get home loans or afford the down payment. Steak has become an entrée for a very special occasion, instead of something served two-times a week,” proposed Dr. Morici.
Dr. Morici blames Dodd-Frank for cutting off the supply of money community banks have for home loans. Instead, large banks have no interest in supporting home financing and are instead making risky investments – the exact practice that got them into trouble.
“Obama has taken apart the American Dream with pick axes and shovels. He is substituting part-time fast food jobs for good paying factory worker jobs in places like Kentucky. He is concentrating his efforts on these part-time workers because they vote for him and Democrats as they wish to continue to receive government subsidies,” suggested Dr. Morici.
The discussion turned to President Obama’s incredulous claim that America is better off than it was before he took office.
“What planet is he on? There are 10 million Americans on long-term disability because it’s easier to draw a government subsidy than find a job. This money is projected to be gone by 2015, depriving the people that deserve this money from getting it. One-half of all new applications are fraudulent because people are desperate for money since they can’t find a job. They’re gaming the system and nobody seems to care,” said Neal, who added that only 47% of Americans have full-time jobs. .
Co-host Dr. Rich Roffman agreed, wondering how Obama can make his claims when we have the highest number of people on disability in the nation’s history, even as gas prices have soared, existing home sales are down, as are new homes going up.
“Almost half of all the unemployed have simply given up looking for work. Jobs, credit, and the economy are still the biggest issues weighing on people, and Obama’s answer is to support part-time job creation – jobs that were never intended as a long –term solution for a family,” maintained Dr. Roffman.
Joining the show as a return guest was Dr. Steven Camarota, who serves as the Director of Research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington, DC- based research institute that examines the consequences of legal and illegal immigration on the United States.
Camarota maintains that while employers argue that there are not enough workers with technical skills, the latest Census Bureau data available has found that the U.S. has more than twice as many workers with science, technology, engineering, and math degrees (STEM degrees) as there are STEM jobs.
“Using the most common definition of STEM jobs, total STEM employment in 2012 was 5.3 million workers (immigrant and native), but there are 12.1 million STEM degree holders (immigrant and native). Only one-third of native-born Americans with an undergraduate STEM degree holding a job actually work in a STEM occupation, and there are more than five million native-born Americans with STEM undergraduate degrees working in non-STEM occupations,” notes Camarota.
Even more depressing is the fact that an additional 1.2 million natives with STEM degrees are not working — unemployed or out of the labor force in 2012. As for the need for foreign workers with advanced training to fill the supposed void, Camarota has found that between 2007 and 2012, about 700,000 new immigrants who have STEM degrees were allowed to settle in the country, yet at the same time, total STEM employment grew by only about 500,000.
One of the outcomes of the glut in people with STEM degrees is that it has suppressed wages.
The final guest on Made in America was Luke Rosiak, the “Watchdog” reporter for the Washington Examiner, who has discovered that federal employees and a contractor diverted more than $1 million of charitable contributions to spending on themselves for in-office massages, meals at every meeting and other luxuries and unnecessary expenses.
“They called themselves “volunteers” and said they needed “motivation” to help the less fortunate, even though some 41 federal workers were being paid full-time salaries to administer just one local chapter of the government’s annual workplace charity drive, the Combined Federal Campaign. They claimed that restrictions on spending for things like first-class flights didn’t apply to donated funds because taxpayer money was not involved. Meanwhile, the contractors handling the donation programs are skimming money off the top, sometimes by as much 65 percent,” revealed Rosiak, who would like to see the Inspector General’s office crack down on these practices since the are essentially stealing money from the poor.
Neal and Dr. Roffman moved on to their weekly segment identifying rampant cronyism.
Dr. Roffman continued his ongoing examination of shady Obamacare practices with the revelation that the federal government is subsidizing insurance companies that may be losing money as a result of their Obamacare participation.
“The convenient part of this is that Obama can release these taxpayer funds without Congressional approval. So he can keep premiums low until after the 2016 election when those covered by Obamacare will discover that the initial rates quoted by insurance companies are just “come-ons” and that actual rates will soar,” concluded Dr. Roffman.
Each week Neal Asbury’ Made in America provides Neal’s insights into the week’s top news stories and their impact on the worlds of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and the overall economy. Neal’s analysis, together with co-host Dr. Richard Roffman, a veteran 30-year publisher with extensive domestic and international experience, takes a non-biased approach based on real life experience in business as an American manufacturer and exporter. Made in America airs nationally each Saturday from 7-8:00 PM on Radio America. Link to Made in America at http://www.nealasburysmadeinamerica.com.
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