Jim Anderson Stivers

This is a reply to a recent post on Bluegrass Politics\via the Herald Leader. JAS
Spencercountypatriot | Aug 10, 2009 | Reply Yes, this is just like the old days! He gets one job with a salary of $250,000 per year and she gets two jobs/positions and a salary of $150,000. So much for parity. When Ol’Stevie Boy says he is for the working man, at least he got the man part right. Wake up Kentucky women! We have a tendency to continue to keep you down and our leadership is heading the charge! Wives and daughters deserve equal pay for equal work. Come on men, jump in on this. Don’t your female relatives deserve equality?
Spencer, Since the success of Governor Martha Layne Collins, during the Asian Industrial revolution in Kentucky, the Economic Development Cabinet has become the "favored patronage source" for doing favors for "associates". I would say in many instances is now larger than the famous politically correct TRANSPORTATION CABINET.
Honestly, Governor Collins did not play that game and it annoyed many of the members of the General Assembly. This new patronage tool started with Wallace Wilkerson.The first two years of Wallace Governorship all the prospects for new industry carried over from the days of Governor Martha Collins and now deceased, Glasgow Newspaper editor and Secretary of the Economic Development Carroll Knicely. His salary was around $70,000 per year.
During the Collins Administration and two years into Wallace Administration Kentucky was still hot for new plants and service industries. It was Wallace who formed a political body to make sure all that were complaining about Industrial Development got a seat at the table. This group meets, occasionally in Frankfort to go over Economic Development matters. Purely a political body.
By forming such a structure Wallace Wilkerson was able to reduce the complaints from geographies that just did not have the labor force or just in time highway construction to support just in time inventory. Wallace was trying to sooth the complaints by putting most every region of the state on the board. All very political. Then, the LOVE GOV . . . He will never shed that one. Paul Patton, put Gene Strong, the guy that Brer Jones replaced Carroll Knicely with. ( ie a WEBB BROTHERS EMPLOYEE). . . in charge of the ED Cabinet,raised his salary to the current$250,00. Strong's job, IMO, was to funnel all the leads direct to Patton so he could advise his constituents as to what was pending , WHERE to go for leads and to suck up to the politico constituents.
Patton, knew nothing, IMO, about real economic development. The structure of the hand offs for projects. . . has no records. This occurred during the time I served as Sr. Project Manger, for sixteen years, for the Ed Cabinet, beginning under Carroll Knicely. With hundreds of millions of dollars involved in Economic Development, politicians raised the bar for compensation. Then many times money buys loyalty. Kentucky jogged along in Economic Development and job creation for a time.
However, with the passing of the NAFTA trade agreement, in less than two years, Fortune 500 began their large investments for factories in Asia, mostly China. Fortune 500 dream had come true. NO EPA and NO LABOR STANDARDS BY THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT. The rest is history and will continue to be until the United States begins to increase a compensating tariff to knock down the cheap labor in China.
Soon, our small, high gas mileage vehicles will come from China via a joint venture between GM and China. Yes, GM will recover. And what will happen to the joint ventures when the haves and have nots in China launch the next revolution? Capitalism and Communism is bad mix and creates lots of EPA,Labor problems and corruption. IMO, that is Economic Development TODAY.
Governor Steve Beshear said he was going to invest more of the ED Funds in new start ups. If Kentucky is to have more jobs, in the short term, then it will have to come from new Entrapaunauers, their ambitions and hard work. But they will need assistance in their start ups. AS for expansions of existing industry? IMO, if there is to be any major expansions by Fortune 500 Corporations, in any region of our state, it is likely if the investments are large enough then those expansions may very well go to the ASIA continent. Jim Anderson Stivers, Entrepeneur, Inventor addicted Blogger. Frankfort, KY.