Feds ask 100 firms to offer N.O. jobs

[rodeodance]

gee, 18 months later..........

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070120/ap_on_bi_ge/rebuilding_new_orleans_powell


Feds ask 100 firms to offer N.O. jobs

By BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 2 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - The federal government hopes to talk 100 of the country's top firms into bringing 100 jobs each to New Orleans to help the city recover from Hurricane Katrina, the head of the federal recovery operation said.

The object is to help rebuild the city's middle class, Donald Powell, the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding, told The Associated Press.

Diversifying the city's economy is a key part of New Orleans' recovery, along with dealing with issues ranging from insurance and housing to health care, education and crime, Powell said in a telephone interview Friday from Washington.

So far, the federal government has dedicated more than $100 billion to rebuilding the Gulf Coast since the devastating 2005 hurricanes. Powell, whose office is part of the Department of
Homeland Security, could not say how much more money the area might expect.

[Sanity Claws]

1. Too late.

Why wasn't something like this done in later 2005? Isn't this pathetic?

[Deja Q]

2. I agree; a shame it wasn't done sooner - all that suffering...

But it IS nice to hear about.

I just hope it isn't all McPart-time retail throwaway 'jobs'.

[uppityperson]

3. well, that's a good idea.

Let's see what happens. I wonder what the 100 firms are.

[aquart]

5. Doesn't matter if there's no worker housing.

Oreck Vacuums is relocating from the Gulf because they can't hire enough people to run the plant.

So, writing a few mass mailing to corporate execs, or planning a nice corporate meeting to discuss it all in some congenial clime (NOT NO) is worth spit. If they aren't willing to rebuild or rehabilitate low-income housing, nothing will happen.

Does BushCo have ANY housing programs (I don't mean hotel money. I mean building buildings to live in permanently.)?

[uppityperson]

6. Yup. Jobs. Housing. Schools. etc.

Permanent post-disaster housing? Why no, because the goal is to get everyone back on their feet in their own homes doing productive work and contributing to society of course! How do you work if there are no jobs, nowhere safe/healthy to live, no place for your kids to go to school, little health care/hospitals/clinics, etc etc etc

[aquart]

8. Don't be surprised if some future domestic terrorists

come from displaced NOLA people. What BushCo is doing is practically a recipe for alienation.

[pitohui]

10. "future"?

as far as i'm concerned, i'm already terrorized when armed robbers are coming into bars and pharmacies and putting people on the ground while they rob the place

we're already in a state of terror, there is no "future" about it

[TexasLawyer]

13. good points

The city's dying because there's no infrastructure. That's not the job of the private employers to provide.

[Rage for Order]

14. That is simply not true

Oreck praised the work force at the Long Beach, Mississippi plant for getting the plant back up and running so quickly after Katrina. The fact is that Oreck received tax incentives from the small town of LB to operate its plant there, and now that the tax incentives are coming to an end the company is pulling up stakes and moving to higher ground. Check out this article:

"To attract - and keep - Oreck, the county gave the company a $3 million loan at 2.5 percent interest, tax exemptions, land that was either free-of-charge or priced well below market value, a $416,000 grant and a free access road to its former call center.

Oreck still owes $1.6 million on the low-interest loan. But that's about all the county can expect back from the company. The lost tax revenue is lost forever. The grant money will never be seen again because a grant is a gift, not a loan. And the true value of the land Oreck leased on the cheap will never be recouped.

Of course, Oreck provided hundreds of jobs to South Mississippians as its part of the bargain. But after Hurricane Katrina, doing business in South Mississippi was no longer a bargain for Oreck.As company president Tom Oreck put it in a press release: "Over a year later, the increased cost of doing business and the harsh realities of living on the Gulf Coast caused the relocation decision."

If that had been all the businessman said, it would have been bad enough, coming as it did just weeks before Christmas. But Tom Oreck had more to say, at least to a reporter for The Tennessean in Nashville. Speaking of his hundreds of employees down in Mississippi, Oreck said, "It was not a productive work force any longer." Yet it is the same work force that Oreck credits for getting his factory quickly back in operation after Katrina."

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/editorial/16318338.htm


There are plenty of people on the Coast who will work, including the roughly 450 employees being laid off by Oreck.

[pitohui]

16. thank you for the update on the oreck situation

it is a shame that they would discard the people of long beach in this way esp. after the horrible effects of katrina on that community

[Oldtimeralso]

4. N.O. Jobs

A few months back Amtrak (owned by the Dept. of Trans. & most of the board of directors administration flunkies) eliminated a sizable number of jobs of the mechanics in N. O.
Keep on doing that heck of a job down there Georgie.

[Nevernever]

7. NOLA is the US gov't's largest gentrification project.

Anyone who has lived in NOLA can tell you that the phrase "black middle class" has rarely been spoken there, and when it has, the phrase reflects badly upon all three families involved. As far as I can see, the city is only getting whiter and whiter..."White Chocolate, Mayor Nagin?"

The only so-called "black" jobs being created there are service sector related. There will be more created, after the upscale condos, malls, hotels, conference centres and casinos get built...

Anyone who is not thoroughly disgusted by now has not looked into it deeply enough.

[pitohui]

9. there no more casino licenses available

a recent report in the local paper states outright that the developers who were supposed to come and build all these supposed luxury condos did not, in fact, come

if they were going to come, they would have bought the land when it was cheap, before the storm -- one of the biggest costs of development is insurance, which is now intolerable

there are no upscale condos coming, no new fancy hotels, all that was a big lie, as for the casino licenses in louisiana, they have always been limited in number and that number is gone, yeah that $200 million donald trump said he was gonna build and help us out after the storm, well where the eff is it? talk is cheap

there is no gentrification in new orleans, what a joke, it's hell on earth and the minute we can get out, we're getting out, the story being told in the national media seems to bear no relation at all to reality here on the ground

perhaps you are thinking of mississippi, where the casinos are coming back and building and actually giving people a chance to make something of themselves

the bottleneck there is housing, i know people making $30 an hour in tips as poker dealers who are still living in trailers, hell yeah they have money more money than they ever had before in their lives, but they can't get the workers to rebuild

[MadMaddie]

11. They needed a comprehensive plan at the beginning

to rebuild the infrastructure of the Gulf Coast with local citizens and to bring businesses in to revitalize the area...

Instead as the history books will show, they chose cronyism and political beliefs instead of doing the right thing..


Katrina was the beginning of the end for this adminstration.

[lovuian]

12. New Orleans will probably be taken over by the Ocean

with it sinking and sea levels rising

its wasted money better to clear out people and offer incentives to move... People aren't stupid they know another Hurricane could mean the same number of deaths even more...Unfortunately its a No win solution

[AnOhioan]

15. Only 100 billion spent??

"So far, the federal government has dedicated more than $100 billion to rebuilding the Gulf Coast since the devastating 2005 hurricanes."


Less than 1/4 of what the US taxpayers have been forced to pony up in the Iraq debacle.

If this is not criminal I do not know what is.