Any hope to change the situation?

[David M]

A business normally employs a level of labor to achieve it's purpose, anything more is a drain on capital/profit. The exception being the not for profit types of business, government, and government controlled businesses. Even in our own Federal system one one the largest up ticks this past year is the employment of temp hires and parttime temp hires.

It would appear in the above examples, the system is working and in no need of being fixed. Any change due might be in acceptance.

David

Ninole Resident

[StillHope]

Mr.Baker,if you are still around,can you comment on David M's post?
You said I have a valid point.According to David M,I don't.
May be he is right and food stamps and working 20-30 hours it's the system which doesn't need to be fixed?

[Loren Baker]

StillHope,

Yes, I'm still around. Thank goodness we all survived the Holidays. Just watching football today. (My Cowboys won!!!)

The Free Enterprise system is alive and well. People can choose to work a minimum number of hours. But in an economy such as this, I think people (at this time, in this economy) are happy to have at least part-time. When I first moved here several years ago, you couldn't find two employees who showed up two days in a row.

We have several new businesses opening up in Pahoa who will need to hire several employees to operate efficiently. The County itself is already overstaffed. There are hiring freezes in place for all government jobs. Teachers can't even work five days a week.

I have every faith that this rough patch will be overcome, probably within two years, I hope. Unfortunately, in this economy, I can't answer your question more specifically. The only thing we can do is make Puna an attractive alternative for businesses to want to operate here.

We do that by offering incentives, making a stronger infrastructure, better highways. All of this will keep more money here, instead of funneling it into Hilo or Kona.

Our future is in our hands. I want to ask the people here to stop fighting progress and embrace it. The more opprtuniities for employment that we have in Puna, the more money stays here.

As long as some residents of this area fight improvements to our infrastructure, thereby keeping property values down, the land prices will continue to remain low, thereby inviting even more people to move here and purchase dirt-cheap land (pun intended.) It's a Catch-22 that does none of us any good.

Those who wish to keep Puna rural are shooting themselves in the foot by unconsciously inviting population growth.

Sorry to ramble, but these are my views.

As to people living off of welfare and food stamps, in a perfect world we would get them off of government programs and back to work. That should be goal one. But we don't live in a perfect world. At least, I don't. Therefore the system is probably irrevocably broken. As long as little kids are raised in welfare households, and told that they are entitled to something from the rest of the citizens of this planet, it will remain so.

The government just keeps coming up with new programs to battle old problems. I'm all for fewer government interventions, and fewer new programs. We will always need to help the truly needful, of course. That goes without saying.

If you have further questions or suggestions, please feel free to respond.

Loren Baker

[StillHope]

Thank you,mr.Baker.

I guess,there are 2 ways :

-very developed,plenty of jobs,not affordable
for the majority of working class
and

- rural,almost no jobs and there for not affordable for the majority of working class people unless they have no mortgage.

About the food stamps:

I was talking about people who don't like to apply and want to work,but being forced to apply because a big company
can,but wouldn't give them at least 40 hours.

But I do understand that's not in your power to change it.



Anyway,thank you for the response.

I got the answer -there's no hope and David is right.

[Loren Baker]

StillHope,

There is ALWAYS hope. I refuse to give up. But I'm sorry you feel that way.

Regarding foodstamps, many people in these past two years have had to apply, who would never have applied before. As far as corporations cutting hours, that is a direct result of lack of commerce. Once this blip on our economic radar has flattened out to smooth sailing again, hours for employees should rteturn to pre-bank failure levels. If they don't, then that particular corporation (as an example only) is taking advantage of the worker.

Loren Baker

[mdd7000]

Stillhope, the most likely thing to change the local employment situation in 2010 is the vast increase in the unemployment insurance taxes. They may be going from just under $100 per year per employee to around $900 per year per employee. I would expect employers to give more hours rather than hiring additional employees. This increase will also cause fewer employees to be hired which will not help the economy to recover.

[StillHope]

Mdd,you mean medical insurance?
Wow!
Anyway,that's not good news.In case of 20/20 you never know which 20 has to go..

[mdd7000]

No, not medical insurance - UNemployment insurance which every business has to pay. It is partly based upon the track record of the company and the industry they are in.

[idiglava]

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/arti...ocal01.txt

Above is the Unemployment Insurance hike article from a couple of weeks ago. This is going to hurt a lot of the small businesses around. I'm really surprised that this went very quietly under the radar. A lot of the businesses aren't aware of this huge hike -- they sure will get a shock come March when they do their quarterlies.

What gets me is that some companies are exempt from having to pay the UI. Why? Can someone explain?