[Vision2020] Aug. 10, 2011 Moscow-Pullman Daily News: Schweitzer said lowering theminimum wage is a good idea

Wed Aug 10 20:43:34 PDT 2011

There is little doubt that Schweitzer to this point has been a very successful entrepreneur.  And in doing so he has treated his employees well.  So far he has evaded a lot of serious competition because of the the singular nature of his business and his adroit management.

It is not accurate to say that he does not "whine."  The DN article contain whines about regulation, for example.

I'd be the last to defend all regulations.  Some are stupid, ill-designed, and counterproductive.  But there are generally good reasons for well-designed regulations in may areas.  What these areas are and how they are to be regulated depends on knowledge and values, the latter an area where consensus is often hard to forge.

A mistake commonly made in some businesses is to promote the best worker into a supervisory position.  Often this does not work.  The skills needed to be an expert machinist, for example, are very different from the skills needed to be an able supervisor.

While Schweitzer is an excellent entrepreneur, that set of skills is different from being an able legislator.  Government is much more complex than most medium sized companies, and it deals within frameworks of complex organizations, though sometimes corrupt, idiotic, and ineffective, never-the-less take a great deal of understanding to even know where to start to make change, and know how to make change against a tide of years of habit and resistance.

Being the king of the company whose word is law is different from being a cog in a legislative/political machine where one's ideas and words carry much less weight.

Further, being an effective business person sometimes narrows perspective and makes understanding different aspects of issues and values difficult.

Schweitzer may make an able legislator.  I don't know.  But his success as a business person is no guarantee that he will.  But perhaps if he set his sights on the state legislature first so he can learn and can show what he can do, then Washington voters would have a better feel for his political/legislative ability.

w.

From: Gary Crabtree 
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 6:55 PM
To: Ted Moffett ; Moscow Vision 2020 
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Aug. 10,2011 Moscow-Pullman Daily News: Schweitzer said lowering theminimum wage is a good idea

I'd love to see Mr. Schweitzer take a run at Patty (the menace) Murray's senate seat in 2016. Washington has a desperate need for a few clear thinking individuals who know how the real world actually works. Someone who has created innovative products and jobs without having to whine to the government for a handout. Accomplishments of which Murray couldn't even conceive.

g

P.S. "meters of sea level rise?" When, by 4012/4042? Nothing like a little sensationalism to try and rile the monkeys

From: Ted Moffett 
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 2:39 PM
To: Moscow Vision 2020 
Subject: [Vision2020] Aug. 10, 2011 Moscow-Pullman Daily News: Schweitzer said lowering the minimum wage is a good idea

Of course Schweitzer provides jobs and an economic boost to the Palouse, and gives back to the community, as evidenced by the United Way support: http://www.moscowlatahuw.org/docs/annual%20report%202010final.pdf
But lowering the minimum wage is a good idea?  Since the great recession an expanding percentage of the US work force is defined as working poor ( http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/pdfs/policybrief-winter2011.pdf ), and would lowering the minimum wage make this situation worse?  Maybe he was misquoted.
Also, Schweitzer comments that "you can't fool the laws of physics even for an instant" regarding fuel economy for vehicles.  Yet, in his critical comments on the costs of the EPA regulation of CO2 emissions, does he imply we should ignore the laws of physics regarding the radiative forcing of human sourced atmospheric CO2 emissions raising Earth's temperature into the range of "dangerous anthropogenic interference," to quote from a Proceedings of of the National Academy of Sciences article I recommend everyone read: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/49/20616.full  August 31, 2009:  "Reducing abrupt climate change risk using the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions" A short quote from the article: The potential consequences associated with these tipping points may be largely irreversible and unmanageable (10) and include widespread loss of biodiversity, meters of sea level rise, and famine, which could lead to political instability (9, 11). In a worst-case scenario, climate change could produce runaway feedbacks, such as methane release from permafrost (12). 
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Schweitzer: Too much regulation can cause harm
http://seekingalpha.com/news-article/1623287-schweitzer-too-much-regulation-can-cause-harm
Wed August 10, 2011 10:02 AM  

Aug. 10--If lawmakers back off unnecessary regulations, the economy could take an upward turn, Ed Schweitzer said Tuesday at a Pullman Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

However, he not only offered criticism of government rules, but also exhortations to fellow businessmen to believe in America and invest in it, as he is doing with major expansion of Pullman-based Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories.

"Duke Energy (DUK) reported that the carbon dioxide limits that the Environmental Protection Agency put into regulation is going to cost them $2 billion to $5 billion dollars," Schweitzer said. "Just for one utility of the United States providing people electricity. Who's going to pay that? Well, who here plugs something in?"

Schweitzer, founder and president of SEL, said regulations for some gas-efficient cars can also make a negative impact.

"It sounds good to make cars that use less gas, but you can't fool the laws of physics even for an instant, and you can only fool the laws of economics for a short time," he said. "As you know we're pushing a ... 56-mile a gallon limit. ... There's estimates that that will kill 200,000 jobs and leave us with cars we don't want."

An important step in fixing the economy, Schweitzer said, is inventing new things, taking them to market and competing to serve customers. In addition, he said, there should be an elimination of all the government activities that "just plain don't work."

"Invent your future," he said. "Make it, do it, sell it, improve it ... and once people stop looking at the capitol dome as the top of an ATM machine, then we're going to get back on track."

Schweitzer said lowering the minimum wage is a good idea, as well as encouraging construction of pending building permits at Pullman City Hall.

SEL itself is moving forward with both construction and production, he said. New SEL facilities have been and are being constructed in efforts to expand services. A facility in Lewiston will be up and running by Oct. 1 and a 90,000 square foot Solution Delivery Center being built in Pullman will be finished by mid-November. In addition, a 68,500 square foot SEL facility recently was constructed in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, for exporting equipment to countries all over the world.

"A few months ago we decided we were really going to step on the gas. And why?" he asked. "We decided we're going to do it because we think the country's going to get it right. We really believe in America."

So far, Schweitzer said, the San Luis Potosi facility has distributed to about 30 countries, and over time Pullman has distributed to more than 140 countries around the world.

"SEL and other people are finding now is a good time to build, and this is something we can do right here at home," he said. "We need the space, so we're building, and right now construction costs are low. We're doing it at about 25 to 30 percent lower than last time we built something ... and it's a good time to hire people -- folks want to work."

SEL employs about 2,500 people worldwide, the majority of them on the Palouse.

Kelli Hadley can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 234, or by email to khadley at dnews.com.

___

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

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