Deception in Counting the Unemployed

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http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/deception-in-counting-the-unemployed/277977/



Leo Hindery, Jr. is one of those big personalities in real life that we see characters trying to play in the movies. He sees himself as a larger than life change agent, working to rewire America's social contract to be more fair to American workers. A former CEO of cable firm TCI, then AT&T Broadband, Global Crossing, and the Yankee Entertainment Sports Network, Hindery helped lead firms to rationalize their assets, streamline staffing, and pump up productivity. From a CEO perspective, he saw businesses offshore their production and service lines rather than re-invest in workers in the United States.

Believing that financial institutions were being deregulated even as the labor market was stuck in 1930s-era legal structures, Hindery believed that the American government, U.S. business leaders, and the markets were on track to wreck the foundations on which middle class America was based.

He believed that workers would see their jobs continually off-shored, and their pensions and savings ripped off in a system increasingly designed to work at odds with them. In the end, Hindery surmised that this would forfeit America's future to other rising powers like China, which was making smart investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, and in workers.

As a CEO who found his soul and developed a profound concern for the state of American workers, Hindery wrote a book called It Takes a CEO: It's Time to Lead with Integrity, in which he argued for a new deal between workers, firms, government and the financial markets -- one that was fairer and more supportive of the aspirations of workers. I got to know him when he supported some of the work at the New America Foundation, where I had founded the American Strategy Program.

[malokvale77]

1. Good article

Thanks for posting.