Here now is labor’s think-tank (a misnomer if ever there was one) — the EPI — with its annual Labor Day tale of woe. The story today is headlined, “Numbers show a second-rate US.” Really? Don’t think so. Despite trying their darnedest to make it so, they don’t quite get there. We are the most productive nation on earth, the most innovative, the wealthiest. Manufacturers create wealth for millions of workers every year. We are the envy of the world. When you open the gates, which way do people flow: From the US out or from outside the US in? It’s a no-brainer.

Still, their bill of particulars includes:

– Generational income inequality, whatever the heck that is. They say the poor has a slim change of escaping their parent’s poverty. In fact, immigrants come here in droves every year — legally — knowing their 2d generation will be wealthier than they are. It’s why they come. And, if EPI supported private accounts for Social Security, the poor could pass on their money to their heirs, something they can’t do today.

– An educational system that’s “not terribly great.” Maybe EPI should talk to their friends in the NEA about this. They go on to complain that low-income families’ children don’t perform well in the schools. Will they support vouchers or school choice, to allow these kids to really escape poverty and go to the school of their choice? Probably not, as the NEA is dead against it.

– Inadequate health care. Point taken, but in countries with socialized medicine, there is rationing. Are they advocating that or just a blank check system for everyone? There’s not a system like that in the world.

– They note other (European) countries’ more liberal leave policies. Admittedly so. However, these countries have nowhere near the job creation we have, they have higher unemployment than we have, lower growth and are far less competitive. Is this a model we want to emulate? No, thanks.

Here’s a link where you can take a look at their grim upcoming study. You won’t find any good news therein.

What a gloomy bunch.

What will all the buzz about our Labor Day report being released yesterday, we missed this gem in yesterday’s WaPo from Sebastian Mallaby. We’ve not always been kind to Mallaby — he has been consistently wrong on the death tax — but credit should be given here, as it is due. He laments the demise of the pro-trade Democrats and their decline into — indeed the embrace of — the corporate-bashing culture. We agree, as it’s often manufacturers who are getting bashed, when it’s us who drive the economy, create the jobs, the wealth for this county.

Mallaby notes that the Dems have turned on Wal-Mart even though, as Mallaby notes,

“[B]ig-box stores led by Wal-Mart reduce families’ food bills by one-fourth. Because Wal-Mart’s price-cutting also has a big impact on the non-food stuff it peddles, it saves U.S. consumers upward of $200 billion a year, making it a larger booster of family welfare than the federal government’s $33 billion food-stamp program.”

He ignores the fact that one of the Dems’ major source of funding — organized labor — is pouring tens of millions down their own rathole to fight Wal-Mart., and they expect all those who benefit from their largesse to follow suit. This has doubtless fueled the anti-Wal-Mart push from Dems, but we agree with Mallaby. This is all of a piece with a larger, more troubling trend against trade and toward more corporate-bashing. At the end of the day, these guys are just biting the hand that feeds the world.

The NAM’s Labor Day Report has now been made public, with the news release available here, and the full report accessible here. The ninth-annual report contains a world of fascinating data about the state of the U.S. economy, manufacturing, and the American worker. There’s some good news — the economy is growing, manufacturing production is up — and some troubling news: Energy costs rose 23 percent this last year, causing workers’ real wages to decline by an average of 0.5 percent across the entire economy (although total compensation increased).

In a just-completed and well-attended news conference, NAM President John Engler described the soaring costs of energy as a real threat to the U.S. economy:

Rising energy costs are clobbering workers’ paychecks. Congress and the Administration need to recognize, we must act or the cost of energy will continue to impair America’s economic growth, hurt its manufacturing base, and shrink employee wages.

On behalf of NAM and the workers both, he called for a comprehensive national strategy to address domestic energy supply and demand.

As noted, we saw high media interest in the report, so we’ll link to some of the coverage over the next day or two. Thanks to Chief Economist David Huether for his analysis and hard work.

[Update by Blogger's Apprentice 12:37 PM]: In case you’re dying to see what happened during the press conference, here’s a link to watch the video of the event.

Our annual Labor Day report will be released today. Watch this space any time after about 10 a.m. EDT for a link to the full report.

And, not to be whiny (OK, it’s a little whiny) but after all the nice things we’ve said here about the WaPo, in their weekly calendar of events in yesterday’s paper, they miss our report — an annual event with original research and always with tons of press coverage — and instead tout this, the AFL-CIO’s sorry event on Wednesday. Wethinks their politics are showing — again.

While writing our weepy tome below on Katrina we went to the City of New Orleans website. If you go there and look at the top left corner, you’ll see a picture of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Next to his photo, you’ll see some links. We clicked on “BNOB”, to get information on the “Bring New Orleans Back” program. When we did, we got the website for the Dallas Junior Hockey Association.

As we said in our post, some things never change…..

Click here to see the image

We’ve often said in this space that the AFL-CIO long ago ceased being a labor movement and is now only a political movement — and a pretty unsuccessful one at that, pouring hundreds of millions of their members’ dollars down a political rat hole supporting candidates and causes with which so many of their members disagree.

But no matter, every Labor Day, they would issue a report –a grim report, but a report nonetheless — about how poorly the economy was doing. It became gallows humor around the water cooler for us to guess the grim title of their next report, but at least they did one, they gamely showed that after all they were still the labor movement, still cared about things like Labor Day.

No more.

This year, they have abandoned any pretext of being a labor movement. They will commemorate Labor Day with a press conference outlining their plans to flush an additional $40 million of their members’ money down the same rathole. Once they’re done with that, they say The Incredible Shrinking John Sweeney “will also outline union movement advances.” That likely won’t take very long, as he’s presided over a pretty steady decline in membership and capped it all off by splitting the organization in two.

It’s sad that Labor Day 2006 will be known as the year that labor threw in the towel.

A year ago this week we all watched as Hurricane Katrina unleashed it terrible force on the Gulf Coast, the most destructive natural disaster in US history. This was storm #1. The second storm — purely political — was unleashed soon thereafter as the left began its ritualistic finger-pointing, a big partisan voice-over as we watched images of people massively dispossessed by the storm. The MSM piled on, making fantastic (and ultimately false) claims of its own — of mass murders, astronomical body counts, rescuers under fire — you name it. The third storm — also political, like the second — comes this weekend as the revisionists gather like the furious storm of twelve months ago. Think of it as a revisionist/finger-pointing gumbo, all weekend long.

Some facts, if we dare:

– The US Government has provided $110 billion dollars to the Gulf Region, for such things as relocation, rental assistance, infrastructure repair, education, removal of debris, you name it. This is an amount larger than the Gross Domestic Product of Hungary;

– The Administration is spending $6 billion — an amount roughly equal to Bermuda’s GDP — for the Army Corps of Engineers to repair the levees. As a result of the Corps of Engineers’ work this far, the New Orleans hurricane protection system is in equal or better condition than it was before Katrina hit;

– 103 million cubic yards of debris have been removed. This is an amount that would fill the New Orleans Superdome to the roof about 25 times over;

– All ports are re-opened and fully operational;

– All petroleum pipelines are back up and running and nearly all refineries are, too;

– As someone noted in a comment to an earlier post, FEMA is not a first responder agency — that’s not their role. But this will be overlooked — again — in the commentary and the post-mortems on the occasion of the anniversary. The President had to wait for the Governors to declare a disaster. Some acted more quickly than others.

Today, on her site, Louisiana Governor Blanco thanks the President — among others — for the recovery to date. Gov. Barbour of Mississippi has a full report that isn’t very whiny. And this link to “Bring New Orleans Back” on the City of New Orleans site inexplicably directs the reader to the Dallas Junior Hockey Association. Some things never change.

In any event, we thought these fact might be useful to keep in mind as you watch the anniversary coverage. In among the finger-pointing and the fight for political advantage, we ought not lose sight of the fact that an enormous response has been made to an enormous disaster. Maybe some day the various pundits and gadflies will dispense with the name calling and focus on the important work of rebuilding the Gulf Coast.

According to its website, “The New Jersey Hall of Fame will soon begin organizing its First Annual Induction Ceremony, which will be modeled after the Academy Awards.” How great is that? It is an opportunity “to honor our citizens who have made invaluable contributions to society and the world beyond.”

Doesn’t it make the mind run? Think of all the great New Jerseyans you’ve known — Francis Albert Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, Jack Nicholson. Think of your favorite rest areas, named for consequential Garden Staters, from James Fenimore Cooper to Vince Lombardi to Walt Whitman. And don’t forget those overlooked by the rest area namers, like Queen Latifah or Stephen Crane, author of “Red Badge of Courage.” Believe us, we know a thing or two about courage in Jersey.

Here’s a story about the newest HOF, and here’s a link to a fact sheet. And, most importantly, here’s a link that’ll tell you how school kids can nominate somebody — say, an influential blogger — or even a not-very-influential blogger — to be in the Hall of Fame. (Let us know if you need help with postage.)

So congrats to the New Jersey Hall of Fame Committee. We will immediately begin sucking up to them. Expect lots of gushing posts here about them and their important efforts.

We can dream, can’t we?

Here’s this, posted on Drudge last night, a story from the UK that global warming is getting so bad that it’s making some glaciers thicker. Still not sure how that’s a bad thing, just go with it, OK?

Here’s a link to another story out of the UK entitled, “A Load of Hot Air” that talks about the vaunted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and what they say is the change in climate in the last century: Exactly 0.6 degrees Celsius. In other words, even if you buy the theory, it ain’t much. Will no one, no thing adapt?

What should be the proper temperature of the earth, does anyone know?

Don’t forget, we release our annual Labor Day Report this Monday at 10 a.m. at NAM headquarters in Washington. There will be a large press cohort, as this is always a popular and oft-cited report, so if you’re a member of the beloved Fourth Estate and you want to come, drop us a note by clicking here. Space is limited and the rest of your colleagues will be there. Don’t get scooped.

Details on the report — and a link to it — will be on the blog on Monday.