Showing posts with label State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State. Show all posts

Thursday, July 25, 2013

How Detroit Almost Killed My Business

Of all the depressing facts about the once great City of Detroit, this to me is the most upsetting:  In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit.  Today, there are less than 27,000 (Hat tip Zero Hedge Blog).
Government -- federal, state, and local -- made this happen. I know this from experience. Government corrupted the Detroit work force. That corruption drove away my company too.
Until 1984, I was a business owner in the city, employing about 20.  I moved my business 60 miles away.  I didn't want to leave, but I was, in effect, forced to. 
Many think that crime spurred the exodus of business out of Detroit.  Not in my case.  To combat crime we would build a stronger "fort." We called it "fort building" because if my neighbor put heavy wire screen on his windows, the thieves would break into my shop.  If I bricked up my windows in response, my neighbor might be broken into.  This escalated to the point where many businesses eventually put fencing topped with barbed wire around their buildings.  Still, although "fort building" was expensive, it was far cheaper than moving. 
Detroit's abysmal educational system did not drive me away either. As it happens, my particular business did not require highly educated people. So I could hire high school graduates not literate enough to fill out an application form.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Obama Executive Order Triples Number Of Agencies Required To Track Guns…


President Obama is tripling the number of Cabinet agencies with gun control law enforcement responsibilities in his new bid to track guns, adding six agencies to the three typically included--Justice, Homeland Security and Defense.

Section 1.e of his executive order released Wednesday adds State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Energy, and Veterans Affairs. It reads: "For purposes of this memorandum, 'Federal law enforcement agencies' means the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, the Interior, Agriculture, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, and such other agencies and offices that regularly recover firearms in the course of their criminal investigations as the President may designate."

Most federal agencies have a police or security arm, but typically law enforcement doesn't included those other six agencies. Justice, in fact, defines law enforcement this way on its web page:

"A federal law enforcement agency is an organizational unit, or subunit, of the federal government with the principle functions of prevention, detection, and investigation of crime and the apprehension of alleged offenders. Examples of federal law enforcement agencies include the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). BJS has surveyed federal law enforcement agencies seven times since 1993. The 2008 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers (FLEO) included agencies that employed full-time officers with federal arrest authority who were also authorized (but not necessarily required) to carry firearms while on duty. The officer counts exclude officers in the U.S. Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Transportation Security Administration's Federal Air Marshals. Findings are based on the 2008 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers."


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