This just in: It’s hot in the summer — or so a new Smartphone app from the DOL says
posted at 7:39 pm on August 18, 2011 by Tina Korbe
If someone from Public Notice asked me whether this was an example of real or fake government spending, I would have unhesitatingly cried, “Fake!” But I would have been wrong. The Department of Labor really did spend taxpayer dollars — though just how many is not quite clear — to develop a Smartphone application to inform outdoor workers whether it’s hot outside.
The DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new “Heat Safety Tool,” designed for outdoor workers who are already outside, tells workers the temperature and humidity level of where they’re at. From that data, the app calculates the “heat index” and “risk level” for workers in the given location.
Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government, the group that first criticized OSHA’s new “Heat Safety Tool” as a waste of taxpayer money, says the app doesn’t provide workers with any useful information that isn’t already common knowledge. Manning said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is using taxpayer money to state the obvious to outdoor workers: it’s hot in the summer.
“Next thing we know, Solis’s Labor Department will come out with an app that tells swimmers that water is wet,” Manning said. “This is absurd. What a waste.”
So an app exists for everything, after all! Just goes to show that, sometimes, old-fashioned methods are better anyway. The Obama campaign and his subsequent administration have shown a willingness to embrace technology — but the president and his advisors prove time and time again they’re out of touch with some basic truths, from the inescapable fact that the country can’t spend its way out of debt to the political reality that, optically, it’s better to buy an American-made bus to travel the country to promote American jobs to, now, the strikingly obvious actuality that most people are, in fact, able to tell whether it’s hot outside — when they are outside.
Related Posts:
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2
You think it’s the same…taking money from people, skimming off the top, giving it back to others, is the same as allowing people to keep their money?
I tell you what, I will make a deal, you give me $1,000 dollars, and I will give you $750 back, and let’s see how happy you are with that deal, it should really stimulate the economy because I have $250 more to spend…I promise to spend it and stimulate the economy.
You and CalBear have about the same aptitude apparently…
right2bright on January 4, 2013 at 4:16 PM
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/01/welfare_recipients_%E2%80%98missing%E2%80%99
During the last campaign, Liz Warren’s daughter brought a law suit from a non profit that demanded that the MA welfare department send voter registrations to the recipients of EBT cards in MA.
The big news today, see the link: almost 20,000 of those voter registrations came back Return to Sender, addressee unknown…
It might be on Gretta tonight.
Fleuries on January 4, 2013 at 4:17 PM
Is he paying for you to have THIS for the halftime?
(scroll down to the last pic)
If so, I’m coming anyway!
Resist We Much on January 4, 2013 at 4:18 PM
Keynes in a nutshell
College Prof on January 4, 2013 at 4:19 PM
Ok, you’re on the planning committee.
See how much this is going to stimulate the economy!
gwelf on January 4, 2013 at 4:24 PM
Facepalm!
TX-96 on January 4, 2013 at 4:25 PM
I recall when Nancy Pelosi said that paying out unemployment benefits actually created jobs. In fact, she said that paying unemployment was the best job creating program we have! Doh! Using Nancy’s logic, if we got unemployment up to about 20%, then we’d really be creating jobs! Don’t you love liberal logic?
TarheelBen on January 4, 2013 at 4:26 PM
So based on this woman’s logic, we should have been in the black when unemployment was floating around 10% right? And reporters are too enthralled with this admin. to ask any serious questions?
hopeful on January 4, 2013 at 4:27 PM
Yep … that good ol’ multiplier. Feral government borrows and spends over 8% of GDP every year and then has the gall to crow about “growth” of less than 2% of GDP. 6% of GDP just gone up in smoke – smoke that has to be paid back and will be done so at vastly higher interest rates in the years to come. What’s that multiplier, there? -.25?
LOL.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on January 4, 2013 at 4:28 PM
Not today, in this country, they aren’t. Our system makes people so comfortable in their poverty, and it is such a big step up to get a job where you have the same disposable income as they do while on the dole, there is no incentive to work. None.
Harsh as it sounds, living in the safety net needs to be uncomfortable. People need to be able to fill needs, which is to say food, clothing and shelter. The Obama phones, flat screens, internet and computer, X-box and all the other luxuries people can only dream of in other countries need to go away, unless they work for it.
iurockhead on January 4, 2013 at 4:29 PM
I’ve said this for a while now and I think this is a key piece that so many people miss when talking about government spending. The feds are a legal money laundering scheme. The second they touch that money, no matter what they use if for and no matter how efficient they are about it, money is wasted just on the process of taking that money from the taxpayers.
hopeful on January 4, 2013 at 4:33 PM
Yes, people go out and spend that money. They spend it on rent/mortgage, car payments, credit card payments and so forth. That’s not the kind of spending that actually stimulates the economy. To suggest that unemployment insurance has “one of the highest multipliers of any government spending” is patently absurd.
Now, there is government spending that is actually stimulative and that’s supply side government spending. When government spends money to build a road or a bridge or a military aircraft or a ship, it creates an economic ripple and, typically, economic expansion. And as long as that expansion and its resulting income exceeds the debt-financed spending, we will have a multiplier larger than one.
Supply side government spending customarily results in economic gain. Demand side government spending may result in a short-term gain (a very small short-term gain), but ultimately results in a long-term loss because the economic expansion it stimulates (given there is any stimulation at all) does not exceed the debt-financed spending.
SukieTawdry on January 4, 2013 at 4:40 PM
Who on CNBC was interviewing her? Why don’t they push back on this idiocy? Where was Rick Santelli?
monalisa on January 4, 2013 at 4:43 PM
Shump on January 4, 2013 at 3:00 PM
I couldn’t agree more. Get everything back to the states.
rhit87 on January 4, 2013 at 4:51 PM
Labor Sec Solis: All of these unemployment benefits have saved millions of jobs, you know
And the Kind Interviewer NEVER gave her a look that said
“Maam, you’re an Effing idiot”
People wonder what is ahppening to our Nation?
There you have it, idiocy on full display-hell these people
are PROUD OF IT.
ToddPA on January 4, 2013 at 5:03 PM
By the time this economy gets moving it will be MillYuns and BillYuns of jobs.
belad on January 4, 2013 at 5:06 PM
People in the media have been culled of any critical thinking skills and thus we get the softball question, 10 minute BS soliloquy and no challenges because the interviewer is afraid that they may not get good reviews.
belad on January 4, 2013 at 5:09 PM
Systemic delusion. Sadly, the Obama voters will simply nod their heads in agreement, smug in the knowledge that their vote was sound in judgement.
On a positive note, I’m positive you could get these same people behind a program like this.
ghostwalker1 on January 4, 2013 at 5:12 PM
The easiest way to bring unemployment numbers down is to eliminate extended funemployment.
You’d be surprised how many might find a job if they were cut off at 6 months.
celt on January 4, 2013 at 5:16 PM
Critical thinking skills 101
If you think something is good, then it should be better if everyone did it. If everyone was unemployed, and everyone was getting unemployment checks then wow the economy would really take off!
odannyboy on January 4, 2013 at 5:20 PM
She should have been pressed on the fact that if a Repub was in the WH NO ONE on the left would be praising any positive effects of 7.8% unemployment. They would still argue for the extensions, but the spin would be more like ‘because this administration has let these people down’… and she and Barry should be made to own that “let down”.
Also, someone from the left please tell me the exact number of unemployed that is to too many. I’ve heard 3-5% is kind of standard to allow for normal flow of workers through the jobs market. Since the excuse/spin/ridiculous lie is that at ~ 8% unemployment checks are a multiplier… Perhaps 5% is too low. At what % does (the left) admit harm occurs instead of multiplication of dollars?
RalphyBoy on January 4, 2013 at 5:24 PM
I think she has a blood clot.
Pork-Chop on January 4, 2013 at 5:37 PM
Many would end up in obamavilles or living in storm drains. You see Obama has done a terrific job at wrecking the economy. There are unemployed people who really want a job.
dogsoldier on January 4, 2013 at 5:49 PM
No doubt, but I’ve also noticed a number of “new” people in the services industry who seem to go out of their way to be the worst at customer service. It’s almost as if they wish to be laid off again for a few more years..but NOT fired since they technically doing the required job.
They’re not that hard to spot vs. other employees..
celt on January 4, 2013 at 6:02 PM
Maybe not, but conservatives do – at least at the national level.
GWB on January 4, 2013 at 6:19 PM
Not true. To qualify for unemployment benefits one has to not work. Economic activity is reduced by the amount of value that the recipient would have produced had he/she been working. The mythical multiplier doesn’t take this into account.
Economic activity is further reduced by the employer having to pay the unemployment insurance instead of using that money for operations or paying dividends. As a result the employer has to pass on this cost to consumers (resulting in less disposable income for them) or lower dividend payments (resulting in less disposable income for investors as well). This negative multiplier isn’t taken into account either.
Forcibly transferring the fruits of Peter’s labor to pay Paul makes both Peter and Paul less productive.
Rich H on January 4, 2013 at 6:21 PM
And now for added amusement we have this:
dogsoldier on January 4, 2013 at 6:22 PM
Are they the exception or the rule?
dogsoldier on January 4, 2013 at 6:23 PM
If the government could just lay on enough extra regulation, taxes, and penalties on enough industries, we could bankrupt thousands of corporations and send millions more onto the unemployment lists to collect benefits. Boy, the country’s economy would really take off then.
Socratease on January 4, 2013 at 7:01 PM
Obama has accomplished the unthinkable; weaponized stupidity.
LizardLips on January 4, 2013 at 7:28 PM
Solis is a prime example of YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!
GarandFan on January 4, 2013 at 8:31 PM
“Well, I’ve been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a
set of earphonesmicrophone.” Major T.J. King KongThe MSM loves to gas on Commander w-O-nderful’s intelligence.
I suppose if we compare him to his chums from Sotomayor to Biden, Solis, Rice, as well as, members of the Media … then he’s a friggin genius!
So, why won’t the MSM report on his sealed college transcripts? Rhetorical I know.
kregg on January 5, 2013 at 7:27 AM
I see the truth of it. At least from a liberal, government is my keeper, view. Yup, every leftest, liberal, media hack, celerity and democrat, I’m being a bit redundant, will agree that it is true. Honestly I really can’t see how they would not. I come from a large family of super liberals and this is the way they think and there is no way to convince them otherwise. To them Benghazi was the fault of the film. Rice didn’t lie. She was given misinformation by racist republican plants of Bush. F&F never happen and if it did it was the fault of Bush who made getting guns easier. All our economic issues are the fault of Bush. The republicans are racist obstructionist that are wrecking the country because BO is black. Guns are bad stuff and need to be banned and that is from one of them that carries wherever he goes. Why? Ready for it? Because as a car salesman he doesn’t trust the Jews and blacks he has to deal with almost daily. People are not being told the truth because the MSM is hardcore right and is telling lies every day. I could go on and on about them. I was talking to a cousin last night and his mother is thrilled beyond belief that Barney Frank will be a MA senator. She thinks it is the best thing this country could have to help dig us out of the Bush disaster. I asked why she thinks that. He said, “Because my mother is insane.”
Dr. Frank Enstine on January 5, 2013 at 7:40 AM
There are a lot of people who think like her and a lot who think it’s nice getting free money. They have no sense of work ethic and think we’re all stupid for working. Then there are the dreamers who don’t work and are satisfied to let each day slip by. They dream of winning the lottery and believe one day they will. This is most of the 47% which is why we need to outvote them in the next election or kiss it all goodbye.
Kissmygrits on January 5, 2013 at 8:56 AM
Solis is an unrepentant Socialist so it’s not surprising she uses Magical Marxist Math (aka “Keynesian” arguments).
Buy Danish on January 5, 2013 at 10:32 AM
Alas, Al Gore failed to get this message from Solis:
Buy Danish on January 5, 2013 at 10:35 AM
Liberals should fire everyone who voted for Obowma so the economy would skyrocket.
Liberal logic is a oxymoron.
dthorny on January 6, 2013 at 11:37 AM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2