Friday, October 21, 2011

More Trouble in Lewyland

Forget the eejits occupying Portland. Fed dollars slated to aid locals spent to hire "foreign workers" instead. At least $7,000,000.00 of taxpayer dollars.



This is Tom's industry and his colleagues south of us aren't too happy about it.

WASHINGTON -- At least $7 million in federal stimulus money intended to provide jobs to unemployed Oregonians instead paid wages to 254 foreign workers, federal investigators have concluded.

The money was for forest clean-up jobs in central Oregon where thousands of experienced workers were idle. When the contracts were announced in 2009, Oregon had the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11.1 percent, with rates in the state's rural forest counties nearly 15 percent and higher.

Even so, the contractors told federal regulators they could not find enough local workers for the jobs.

That came as a surprise to local officials, who said they often got hundreds of responses to every job opening.


The political disgust is bipartisan, by the way.

Read the rest from the Oregonian.

24 comments:

  1. One of the companies was GE Forestry. Same GE who's CEO Immelt is part of Obama's Jobs committee.

    How much more of this is needed before the progressives figure out their whole party infrastructure is a racket?

    Of course, their's is not the only party...

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  2. Interesting, lewy. I never heard of GE Forestry.

    Figures.

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  3. Actually, I hadn't heard of any of the 4 companies that controlled the contracts. And my husband has been in this industry for 26 years. I'll have to ask him about them and get his take.

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  4. Every day we read about something so totally outrageous that it boggles the mind. EVERY DAY! The politicians don't even bother to sugar-coat or hide their shenanigans and incompetence any longer.

    Maybe this will nudge the smug Oregon libs into reality, but I doubt it. 7 million bucks. Gawd awmighty. The money that's been wasted with the stimulus spending is appalling.

    I'd love to hear what Tom thinks about this, florrie.

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  5. Florrie, I can't wait to hear Tom's take, either. You've never heard of any of the companies? What is going ON?

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  6. Thank you, lady red and afw. He just got home (he had sent me the link earlier) and he hadn't heard of a single one. But he forwarded the article to a log buyer in Oregon so it will be interesting to get this take on it as well.

    I hate to use a worn-out phrase but it sounds like more crony capitalism at work.

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  7. These four companies are not "forestry" companies as we understand that term florrie, they are all contractors who provide reforestation, fire fighting, clean up services. They don't actually harvest and sell the trees or own the land. And sorry Lewy, GE Forestry is not a part of GE. It is an independent company owned by a guy called Esteban Gonzalez.

    My Google foo is working good today!

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  8. Fay, yes, GE Forestry does restoration; that includes clearing, selling and replanting.

    The bigger companies that do the same are Weyerhseuser, Merrill and Ring, Roseburg, Hampton, etc., etc.

    I haven't looked at the other 3 but I'll do that...

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  9. Fay, thanks for the info - I guess I'm guilty of perpetrating a "too good to check" story. Made sense to me because GE's got it's tentacles in so many industries... good to know the true situation.

    Still, the gummint paid sennnior gonzales muchos pesos to hire Americans - punked again.

    Portland people will mostly not care.

    The first reaction: OMG they were cutting down trees? Oh Noes! Oh, wait, they were clearing forest and replanting? Well, OK maybe... Wait, no Americans were hired? This is a manufactured crisis with a naked appeal to shameful jingoist nativism. No laws were broken so shut off your damned Faux News. Sheesh.

    I'm betting the local alt weeklies ridicule anyone complaining about this, if they mention it at all. White men who work in forests (i.e. colonizing potential tree murderers) do not rate as "working people" in their eyes.

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  10. I'm betting the local alt weeklies ridicule anyone complaining about this, if they mention it at all. White men who work in forests (i.e. colonizing potential tree murderers) do not rate as "working people" in their eyes.

    lewy, lol.

    Good thing for those white men who don't rate as "working people" or they'd be wiping their arses with leaves.

    Gnomesayin?

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  11. Good thing for those white men who don't rate as "working people" or they'd be wiping their arses with leaves.

    LMAO florrie! So true!

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  12. Hug a logger not a tree!

    lewy mentions, "I'm a lumberjack" in three, two, one....

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  13. Fay, I'm going to walk over and hug one right now. Especially since he's taking his day off to drive me to a nursery in a few minutes :-)

    (Although he's really not a "logger", his business is marine towing. They schlep logs around).

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  14. Lewy ... not so sure, here at least, that GE Forest is not affiliated with GE through GE Capital-Rail Services in some manner. GE Capital is definitely part of the overall GE complex of businesses and definitely is in the forest service business.

    In other words, where did Senior Gonzales get his funding for the 1998 start up? GE Forest claims 100 employees ... so who were these 254 "workers" they paid with Gummint money?

    Is it paranoid to think somebody is working against you when they are in fact working against you?

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  15. Matt: "Organic" ... means foods and fauna grown in shit.

    Most organic product I know of ... Mushrooms. Next might be cabbages in the Far East. I just love it how the latter-day hippies talk about "organic" as "pristine" ... I suspect they've never run a manure spreader on a farm or ranch.

    Now having owned many horses and done considerable barn and pasture work, I am a forking expert on shit handling. The "forrest" ain't "organic" until the bear shits in it. :D

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  16. Perhaps I should have said "sustainable." Funny how when business wants to use trees, it is destroying forests. When the left wants to use trees, it is "sustainability."

    I have heard some really bizarre things called "organic." Too bad I can't remember any right now.

    Chemically speaking, organic means it has carbon in it.

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  17. Matt ... Chemically speaking, you are of course correct. Then virtually everything that ever lived, however nourished, is organic.

    In my Chemistry days we had great fun with CH3CH2CH2-COOH. Nothing like the scent of vomit or rancid butter to drop on to a lab mate's lunch bag. Or shirt collar.

    However, the term "organic" when applied to food stuffs today, by markets, etc., means what I said ... it tickles me no end.

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  18. Pardon me boys, is that the CH3CH2CH2-COOH?

    I have always looked a the term "organic" as another one of those terms that have been co-opted.

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  19. I'll see your CH3CH2CH2-COOH, and raise you a C6H5–O–CH2CH2CH3. :D

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  20. OMG, all this CHCHOOCHCH3 is reminding me of Chief Churchill, for some reason.

    Perhaps I should have said "sustainable." Funny how when business wants to use trees, it is destroying forests. When the left wants to use trees, it is "sustainability."

    Amen, Matt, amen.

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  21. Mi' Lady ... Phenyl Propyl Ether is no where near as stinky as Butyric Acid =))

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