Last updated on 2014.02.24
Friend and frequent commenter Owen Reitzel submitted the following complaint about local corporate welfare to the Mitchell Daily Republic last month:
Recently at a John Thune town hall meeting Trail King CEO Bruce Yakley said that if Mitt Romney had won the presidential race his company would have hired 150 people. But since Romney didn’t win, Yakley’s not going to. Yakley also said the government should making spending cuts.
In 2009 Trail King laid off 150 people here in Mitchell because the economy was bad and his business was slow. Those layoffs came very early in President Obama’s first term. You could say the economy went south because of President George W. Bush.
Now Trail King's business is booming. In fact it’s so good that they can’t find enough help and the Governor used part of 5 million taxpayer dollars to help Trail King find out-of-state workers.
My question to you Mr. Yakley is what is the problem? Under Obama your business is growing, under Bush you were laying off workers.
Incredible!
If spending cuts are important sir then since your company is not hiring anymore maybe we could save $5 million by cutting the program to bring out-of-state workers here.
Finally somebody brought up that people receiving welfare should be drug tested. O.K. Since the state of South Dakota was giving your company, Mr. Yakley, corporate welfare, would you submit to a drug test?
Owen Reitzel
Alexandria SD
Worth noting: Trail King has further benefited from South Dakota's corporate welfare program via a half-million WINS dollars used to start a welding program at Mitchell Technical to do Trail King's job training.
Trail King CEO Bruce Yakley responds in Monday's paper. He lists six "facts" to rebut Reitzel. He concludes with some vague and unnecessary personal intimindation, saying he "did some research on Mr. Reitzel" and found why he "seemed offended."
* Fact No. 1: 2009 was the worst year in the trailer industry since 1954, the year records started to be kept. The entire trailer market dropped on average 70 percent versus 2008. In the background, the past owner of Trail King was preparing the company to sell, thus cutting very deeply into Trail King’s employment. Was this the result of President Bush or years of fiscal mismanagement by “all” of our elected officials? What part did Barney Frank’s efforts on developing legislation in 1992 forcing mortgage companies to lend to unqualified people play into the housing collapse? [Bruce Yakley, "Facts are clear: Romney was better choice for trailer industry, Trail King," Mitchell Daily Republic, 2013.02.04].
That's not a fact, Mr. Yakley. Those are rhetorical questions stemming from your preferred worldview. And it doesn't refute Reitzel's basic correlative assertion: when someone very much like Romney got done with the country, Trail King was on the ropes. After four years of Obama, Trail King is in good shape.
* Fact No. 2: In 2012, Trail King’s business flourished. The average age of a trailer in the U.S. was approaching nine years old, the oldest in history. The cost to refurbish outweighed the cost of replacement. The economic policies of Obama had nothing to do with the age of trailers in the U.S [Yakley, 2013.02.04].
True: trailers age regardless of who wins elections. But people replace those trailers based on the money in their pockets. And if President Obama hadn't saved us from Depression with the stimulus, you'd still be waiting on the recovery that made many of those purchases possible.
* Fact No. 3: The lack of available skilled workers regionally was a very difficult situation for Trail King. The WIN legislative program helped Trail King hire 32 skilled workers, at a cost to the state of $122,400 and a cost to Trail King of $144,000. Mr. Reitzel, what is the Mitchell regional economic impact of 32 new families earning a compensation total of $2 million annually? [Yakley, 2013.02.04]
CEO Yakley doesn't rebut Reitzel here; he confirms Reitzel's contention that Trail King has profited from the "socialist, entitlement policies" he's about to impugn. Those corporate welfare policies weakly attempt to counteract the problems caused by South Dakota Republicans, not President Obama, that hold back Trail King's hiring: low wages and low union membership.
* Fact No. 4: Obama issued an executive order in April 2012 effectively shutting down new oil and gas exploration utilizing hydraulic fracking. There were 80 jobs tied to pneumatic trailer production that Trail King builds for this industry. This executive order by Obama effectively shut down pneumatic trailer production. Mr. Romney had made statements to the effect that the Obama executive orders and regulations tied to the EPA would be reviewed and, most likely, reversed if Romney was elected [Yakley, 2013.02.04].
Shut down new oil and gas exploration? What? My neighbors still head up to the Bakken every other week, and when they come home, all that dark gunk on their coveralls ain't molasses. The President's April 2012 order regarding fracking was actually a measure to coordinate adminstration activities on fracking. The oil and gas industry welcomed this order. And since the April order, domestic oil and gas production are nothing but up.
* Fact No. 5: Trail King solicited its top 95 customers, representing 85 percent of its 2012 revenue, in October to get their 2013 requirements. Ninety percent of these customers stated they had two business plans: one if Obama got elected, one if Romney got elected. Their plans if Romney got elected were, on average, 20 percent higher (plus 70 jobs). Why? Very simple: Romney would have “pro-growth policies” and Obama has “socialist, entitlement policies” [Yakley, 2013.02.04]
Yakley resorts here to unprovable hypotheticals. A lot of the "Four more years will tank our business" moaning was pre-election Romney-boosterism and immediate post-election sour grapes. Recent stock market performance has shown that, once they get over their grief, businesspeople get right back to looking for ways to make their money, as they would have regardless of who won the election. And those ways of money include pressing the case that they are entitled to socialist programs that help them make money.
* Fact No. 6: Mr. Yakley had been part of a drug testing program at his former employer for five years. Mr. Yakley had to take a drug test before he was hired at Trail King [Yakley, 2013.02.04].
Yakley does not respond to the fundamental contradiction that Reitzel highlights: Many Republicans think the state should force poor people to take drug tests as a condition of receiving social assistance. Trail King receives, what, a hundred times more in handouts from government than any individual poor person? The state fills Trail King's bucket; should not CEO Yakley fill the state's pee cup?
I would say that I've done some research on Bruce Yakley and can understand why he seems offended by Owen Reitzel's questions... but I don't need to work that hard to understand the corporate welfare mentality.
"but I don't need to work that hard to understand the corporate welfare mentality"
Yes, it is the same mentality of all government handouts...coveting.
Thanks Cory. The other fact is that many of Romney's advisors were from the Bush administration. Think they would have gone back to Bush's policies? Bush also inherited a balanced budget thanks to Clinton and we were paying down the national debt.
Yackley talked about the 32 families that have come to Mitchell and the $2 million they earned in Mitchell. What about the 150 that were laid off in 2009? How much money was lost when alot of those people left Mitchell? I know some personally.
"In the background, the past owner of Trail King was preparing the company to sell, thus cutting very deeply into Trail King’s employment."
This statement bothered me the most. It's mentioned casually like "oh well. Tough luck."
I know what those people felt like. I was laid off as well last year through no fault of my own. My former employer thought he could make more money shipping my job to India. Trying to find affordable healthcare has been impossible. I'm on Cobra but as anyone who has been Cobra knows its expensive.
But I've been fortunate. I've been able to use a government program to be retrained in a different field while being on unemployment. I'll also be getting a tax break which will pay for 72.5% of my monthly insurance bill. I don't believe a lot of those laid off by Trail King were as fortunate.
I wrote my original letter because I was disgusted at hearing what Mr. Yackley had to say. In my mind I had to set the record straight.
Boo Hoo. So the Republicans didn't get the President they wanted. On the bright side, their crony capitalism regime rolls on in South Dakota - redistributing wealth upward.
As Romney would say, "Corporations are people too." They have to eat. They have to feed and house their families. The bigger they are, the more help they need from government, right?
The tax money liberals pay into the government goes to subsidize these ungrateful, lazy and shiftless corporate CEOs. Then these welfare kings go out and threaten layoffs so they can siphon more of our money into their bonuses to payoff the Republican politicians who keep funneling all the tax dollars their way.
I've never seen a CEO who can make do more than watch as the people who manufacture the company's products do the productive work. The first and only person that should be laid off is Mr. Yakley.
I wish the GOP would prove their point with action; show that government is unnecessary. Why don't the private businesses DO the things that they say that the government cannot? Why not refuse the money (corporate welfare) from the government to prove the point that they do not need government to succeed. They should create a perfect society around themselves of well-paid workers doing safe work; they should help those that need it in emergencies like drought or storm; they should privately support the social institutions and infrastructure to create a talented workforce for the years ahead. Just DO it. Make me and other liberals eat our words by showing the shinning example of the private casting off the yolk of government and succeeding on those Randian (is that an adjective?) principals they speak so highly of. Just DO it.
"I wish the GOP would prove their point with action; show that government is unnecessary. "
Because they need a big governemnt to implement their cartels. What you guys refuse to understand is that the economy is not dictated by either party, it is determined by the internationalists that run the central banks.
Sibby Online still blocking you, Sibby?
[CAH: Larry, that's the funniest blog joke I've heard all week. :-) ]
Those internationalists are pretty powerful...
Sibby,
You didn't complete the whole diatribe. Businesses can't pay workers because taxes, especially capital gains on investors' dividends, are too high. They can't insure safe workplaces because they have to spend too much time complying with other regulations. These regulations and taxes have been created by new-age theocratic married lesbians.
I'm a bit disappointed I have to finish these things for you.
LK, New Age spirituality is the religion behind the United Nations:http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_lucytrust04.htm
[CAH: No no no no no.]
Why is Yakley still soaking up corporate welfare in Mitchell? If he's so irritated by the black guy winning the presidential election again, maybe he needs to relocate to an authoritarian regime where the middle class has no chance of survival and rich jerks get stinkingly richer and don't have to explain their sociopathic behavior. There are places in the Pacific Rim that force people into slavery and make them work 18-hour days. Slaves, Yakley! When you're done with 'em, throw them away and get some more.
Grudz,
Trust me I do want to learn. I have clicked on some Sibby's links before. I missed the one about the supernatural League of Nations. I tend to prefer the Avengers or the Justice League if I am going to read about super-powered leagues.
I suppose I should thank Sibby for leading me to discover that I have a learning disability. I am unable to learn anything from terms that have no meaning or conspiracy theories that, at their most logical. confuse correlation with causation. Some of the others merely confuse.
Refusing to add 150 jobs out of vindictive rage over the results of an election says much about how some executives try to thwart democracy. If a business has a viable opportunity to increase business, there are not many situations in which a CEO would keep his job after making such a public pronouncement. One must also question if the difficulty in finding workers is because of a shortage of labor, or because of the company's reputation.
[CAH: I moved this comment here from another thread; I think Anne wanted it here!]
So not only can't LK handle solid research, neither can Cory. Again, this is an example of how American schools have been turned into totalitarian entities.
"CAH: No no no no no."
Very articulate and coherent rebuttal Cory!?! The link you deleted provided support, including footnotes, to my argument that LK mocked.
Steve,
Your links are propaganda not research. They parade supposition as fact. The few facts that they present are connected in a way that tortures logic beyond belief.
I would hope that most people would be able to agree that "too big to fail corporations" harm the country and that said corporations ought to be broken up without having to resort to a Masonic conspiracy theory. I would hope that people can agree that giving any President to power to establish a kill list of American citizens is a bad idea without claiming that the list stems from a New Age effort to kill American Christians and drink their blood or whatever bizarre idea you’ll link to in the next few days.
Finally, I hold as literal truth I Corinthians 1:25 “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” That verse does not imply that God considers inane ramblings on conspiracy websites heavenly wisdom. It also doesn't imply that one shouldn't use the mind that Christianity asks its adherents to renew (Romans 12:2).
No, Steve, as LK makes clear, it went down a rathole that I'm tired of you digging in my comment section. New World Order, Masons, New Age Theology -- all, frankly, nonsense, and a waste of readers' time. Post it on your site every day. Draw your audience. Don't distract mine from reality.
Why yes, I am in a cranky mood this afternoon.
Meanwhile back in Washington DC, John Thune votes against the Violence Against Women Act because Native American Women shouldn't be protected by the law if they are beaten and raped on a reservation by a non-native.
The media yawns...just doesn't care...or isn't paying attention.
Sorry, I forgot that the newsrooms are run by men who don't have a daughter, sister or wife living on the reservation.
Carry on boys. There's no GOP war on women and John Thune is representing all of South Dakota just fine...and gosh isn't he good looking, charming and tall? WTF. Do your job!
LK & Cory, simply discounting research (based on books written by Bill Clinton's mentor) as conspiracy theory only shows that your propaganda cannot withstand the test of reality. Both Republicans and Democrats are being manipulating into a fight against one another. This thread is an example of it. What is wrong with stating that instead of thinking one side is right and the other is wrong, it is entirely possible that both sides are wrong?
What is not surprising by all of these is that two teachers whose job is to promote UNESCO's propaganda whould call the research that presents their agenda as being propaganda. LK, you may want to spend some time in the book of Revelation. You just may come to the understanding that what I am presenting is not consipiracy theory, but instead Biblical prophecy. If so, I hope you understand that you should not be a part of setting up the Beast empire. The consequences are eternal.
Yoga can be very helpful for the discomfort you experience, Sibby:
"Avera Queen of Peace Wellness Center is a yoga instructor at 5th & Foster, Mitchell, SD 57301. Avera Queen of Peace Wellness Center provides yoga services like Bikram, pilates, prenatal yoga, yoga for beginners and exercise techniques. Call Avera Queen of Peace Wellness Center at (605) 995-2468 for a full list of yoga services in Mitchell, SD."
Larry, I already know about how eastern mysticism (an important component to the New Age Theology) is infiltrating the church.
What's wrong with bringing all that up, Steve, is your complete disruption of normal discourse about real issues by turning everything to screams of UNESCO! and New Age Theology! We're talking about hypocrisy in Mitchell. We're talking about corporate welfare seekers misrepresenting the truth about their politics and government-dependent business practices. You have lots you could say about that, lots that would help us understand practical policy-making. Why can't you stick with that? You blog well when you talk real local issues. People would actually listen if you'd get back to that. Even if you are right, Steve, about this weird globalist conspiracy that you say everyone here but you is a part of but that no one but you can see, you would make more progress in fighting it by writing the piece I wrote above, without any mention of the dark cabal behind the lies and corporate subsidies.
By the way, to counter Yakley's assertion that the Obama Administration has hamstrung oil and gas exploration, the Western Organization of Resource Councils finds that oil and gas activity is expanding much faster than the ability of the federal government and states to send out inspectors to make sure such work is being done right.
Wing Nut Daily joins Michele Bachmann for this week in crazy:
http://www.nationalmemo.com/this-week-in-crazy-march-1st-edition/