Essentially he has been proud of failure in my opinion.
Take this article for example from Business First: Louisville fares poorly in Brookings economic study - Business First of Louisville: essentially it states:
"The Louisville metropolitan area showed weakness in average wages and gross metropolitan product during the first quarter of 2009,"
But we already knew that didn't we?
As a matter of fact I tried to force these issues during the 2006 Mayoral race. But of course an outsider could know nothing about the economic indicators could they?
According to the article some of the things included in the study are: employment, unemployment rate, wages, gross metropolitan product — the total value of goods and services produced within a metropolitan area, housing prices and the number of foreclosed properties owned by lending institutions.
Of course no surprises here at all. In fact during the Mayoral election of 2006 I spent a great deal of time warning of the onslaught of foreclosures and the negatives coming from the Mayor's conference that year Louisville was headed down in livability.
You can read more about that here: Louisville News and Politics: ABRAMSON IGNORED WARNING SIGNS SINCE 2005. In fact when you read it I use the stats verbatim from the report.
It was obvious in 2005 we were going to have problems, agreed with by Abramson during the conference, yet publicly here where he figured no one would see his remarks or results, he cheer leaded all into thinking he was doing a great job.
Of course he also bragged about building new libraries with no new taxes then 3 short months after the election worked diligently to break that pledge. We knew as did so many voters that he just wanted a new tax to hide the money he kept misappropriating. I am glad we caught him myself yet this was just one more example of Abramson lying so that he could gain.
Of course since then we are seeing rampant mismanagement, mishandling of money, and excuse after excuse for the failures. We nail Kim Bunton for her financial fiasco and have to wonder who else is playing the same game. we continue letting insiders "retire" just to bring them back a couple of months later at an even greater cost to we the taxpayers.
These people are all recycles and we wonder why we cannot get ahead? New leadership brings new ideas and fresher approaches to governing. We do not need the same old faces and ideas. Nor do we need the same old people that only show up for elections hoping to get lucky while doing nothing in the 4 years in between to make a difference. Believe me we sure do not need a Jim King or even David Tandy IMO to take over either.
We need one of us everyday folks that feel the pain and know how the bottom half lives if we are going to rebuild the middle class and make Louisville vital once again.
In short? Abramson knows he has screwed up, simply doesn't care, and in my opinion has lied for years to our faces while gaining for himself and cronies the whole time.
The report goes on to lay these figures out as well.
Louisville near bottom for wage change
According to the study, Louisville ranked No. 95 out of 100 in percentage of change in average wage between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009.
It had a 0.7 percent decline during that period.....
This statement speaks volumes as well: According to the Brookings report, average wages typically do not decline in a recession “because it can be difficult for employers to cut them.”
Good ole Jerry found a way to drop wages during a recession as well.
Let me be the first to say thanks for the low wage service economy Mr. Mayor. sarcasm purely intended. And we wonder why homelessness and foreclosures are up? Wonder why Abramson did not respond to this oncoming freight train in 2005, when he was well aware of the prognosis, since he reported it at the Mayor's conference?
He couldn't understand it or couldn't find a way to spin it and make money at it I guess.
Louisville also fared poorly in the gross metropolitan product category.
It was 86th out of 100 when comparing the first quarter of 2009 to the peak quarter. Brookings did not specify the date of the peak quarter, which was 5.2 percent higher than the first quarter of 2009.
When comparing the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, Louisville experienced a 2.4 percent decline, which ranked it No. 99 on the list, ahead of only Detroit.
Folks if I nailed it in 2005 then why didn't he and his recycled so called experts? If the Mayor wannabe's in King, Tandy, and a whole host of recycled insiders did not see this coming and work to counteract it then how can we believe they will do better? For me all I see is the same old selfish wants from the front runners today. And I have seen nothing from the ones who wanted their name on a ballot in November but have done nothing since just waiting to try and steal the next election.
That is selfish and not leadership.
The time to ask questions is now. The time to get accountability was yesterday.
We must start somewhere. Your thoughts?
What that Brookings database shows is that Louisville is getting hammered by the recession.
ReplyDeleteThe drop in wages is a real concern because the Louisville economy was doing a good job of producing "middle-range" jobs for people without a full college degree, which is a substantial part of the workforce.
Take a look at this other Brookings study using 2005 data:
Middle Wage Jobs in Metro Louisville. The appendix B at the .pdf puts Louisville at "60" in accessibility to these jobs, which isn't super-good, but better than Ohio citys.
Yes we are getting hammered by the recession but I cannot help but realize we could be better off even in recessionary times. When business will not look at Louisville because of our political landscape, high taxation, and lack of a quality workforce we have probs.
ReplyDeleteIn short even by your numbers at 60 from 2005 (which preceded the current recession dates) we were already on the path to insignificance and that is unacceptable.
Thanks for writing I appreciate it.