Tech Illiterate Scott Walker thinks "Flat Screen TV's" all the rage, ignores Job Creating Alternative Energy

It's been frustrating watching our tech-illiterate governor Scott Walker run from tech-heavy bioscience at the UW, tech-heavy high-speed rail, tech-heavy health care systems, groundbreaking tech-heavy new medical treatments, and tech-heavy climate science.

That's why the Foxconn fiasco was so insane. Suddenly, a tech epiphany hit our clueless governor. That resulted in an overreaction and lots of taxpayer money to bring "tech" for the "first time" into Wisconsin. Who knew?

What, Plan for Modernized Power Grid, Alternative Energy? Imagine Scott Walker and top GOP Republicans working with the Public Service Commission (PSC) to modernize energy and our power grid in Wisconsin...I know, I'd laugh too if it wasn't so sad:

Columbus Business First: After more than a year of planning, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) has unveiled its PowerForward report, a roadmap to the modernization of Ohio's power grid. Utilities must undertake modernizations that take into account new technologies, renewable energy, electric vehicles, home interfaces like smart thermostats as well as big-picture security issues like emergent cybersecurity threats.

Not binding, PUCO said the 44-page report will serve as a framework ... heard from experts and stakeholders ... focused on emerging technologies that promise to transform Ohio's energy industry and the regulations needed to manage it.

This is not even on the Walker administrations radar:

The energy industry in Ohio will mean more interaction between consumers and their utilities. "This grid is decades old, and in some cases, centuries old," Chairman Asim Haque said. "We want these investments to be made and deployed cost-effectively."

State Utilities Charge Past Walker: While Walker wants to support coal because it's supposedly "less expensive," our state utility companies are so over coal:

ShepherdExpress: We Energies wants to reduce carbon emissions, preserve fuel diversity and reduce costs to customers. “We’re really focusing on retiring our older, less efficient, coal-fueled units, building advanced technology natural gas units and investing in cost-effective, zero-carbon, renewable generation, like utility-scale solar. Utility-scale solar in the past few years has increased in efficiency, and prices have dropped by 70%, making it a really cost-effective option for our customers. We are very focused right now on utility-scale solar.”

Yet Walker still isn't connecting tech to the wind and sun, you know, unlimited free fuel with no shipping costs via our roads or rail: 

Wisconsin lags other states in solar energy production. According to Peter Murphy of MREA, “Policy truly is the only thing—not technology and not financials—that stands in the way of solar deployment in Wisconsin,” he says. “Two easy policies that Wisconsin could enact, following the states of Minnesota and Illinois, are community solar and third-party financing.”

Milwaukee and surrounding areas would experience a solar boom that would likely include options to help low-to-moderate income families reduce their electric bills. And renters, not just property owners, would be able to access the benefits of solar. There is no good reason why we don’t have these solar-friendly policies here,” Murphy says.

1. Community solar (sometimes referred to as “community solar gardens”) involves a large solar array—a small power plant, in effect—which serves multiple households, businesses and institutions. 
2. Third-party financing is an arrangement in which someone other than the property owner owns the solar array and charges the consumer less than what the utility charges.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs - Republican Rural Voters Rake in "Green" Dollars while voting for Anti-Wind/Solar Politicians: 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ #1 and #2 fastest growing jobs in the U.S. are solar panel installers and wind turbine technicians. These jobs are good, solid middle class jobs with annual salaries pushing close to six-figures. Beyond construction, the plants (particularly wind farms, with their many moving parts) offer good jobs in the long term.

Not only do wind and solar power bring jobs, they increase the local tax base for revenue-starved public schools and other districts. For example, Nolan County in Texas has seen its tax base increase almost eight fold to nearly $3 billion dollars since the West Texas wind rush began.

Mid-Tech Jobs coming to Foxconn and Wisconsin?

The idea that Scott Walker leads all Democratic gubernatorial challengers is stunning. You would think voters would only give a third term to a highly successful governor, that such a privilege would be reserved for best of the best, right? Yet Walker's record, based on a national growing economy and nothing he's personally done, is just not a factor.

Example, Walker's "eggs-in-one-basket" Foxconn deal rolled out without a single wonkish lecture detailing just how it will help workers in the state. Not once did he mention the all-important "mid-tech" worker, a non-college educated laborer in plentiful supply in the southeastern portion of the state. It's the one biggest issue, besides the state's brain drain and worker transportation problems.

And don't forget the GOP's "free market" driven Great Recession, when many manufacturers changed their business model; maintaining a smaller full-time workforce using temp labor to fill-in during periods of high demand. (Wait a minute, a temporary workforce? Is it any surprise Wisconsin workers didn't buy into the idea, opting instead to seek full-time steady employment.)

These are just a few of the examples adding to the now short supply of labor in Wisconsin:

JS: “Everyone is feeling the talent crunch,” said Amber Laurent, Manpower’s regional director. “You can’t go anywhere without it being a main part of conversations.”

It's the Wages Stupid: I know it's crazy, but people want more money for their time and work and not just the pride that comes with having a job:

So why isn’t pay higher? Increases nationwide in total compensation which includes pay and benefits in the private sector have hardly been robust. In percentage terms, also lag behind the gains of the early 2000s.

John Heywood, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said some economists believe things have fundamentally changed and that we won’t return to the compensation gains of the past. One reason for that view: Labor force participation is unusually low and so, Heywood said, there may be more slack in the labor market than the unemployment rate suggests.

Back in March...

WPR: The numbers come from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages: From September 2016 until September 2017, Wisconsin added 17,670 private sector jobs. That's considerably less than in previous years. For example, Wisconsin added 27,289 private sector jobs during the same period a year ago and 34,551 the year before that. Wisconsin's 0.7 percent private sector job growth rate ranked 31st in the nation. Wisconsin ranked 32nd when these numbers were released in 2017.

The latest numbers also show Wisconsin added 4,616 private sector manufacturing jobs from September 2016 through September 2017. That's an improvement from the same period a year ago when Wisconsin lost manufacturing jobs.

Mid-tech Workers Rising: On Upfront with Mike Gousha, Foxconn Executive Louis Woo made the claim that 30 percent of its labor force will be your typical factory worker...middle tech? Coincidentally (?), this Brookings report below also used that 30 percent number:

Monster, Forbes, and Business.com have touted the “7 Tech Jobs You Can Get Without a Degree” or the “10 High-Paying Tech Jobs You Can Get Without a College Degree.” Such discussion of “new collar” jobs has been giving credence to the idea that tech might be a more accessible source of upward mobility for “blue-collar” workers and places, as well as underrepresented populations, than many have previously thought ... it’s clear that a surprisingly large share of classic tech jobs are actually quite accessible to workers without a bachelor’s degree. 

As the table shows, nearly one-third (30 percent) of the workers in three of the 13 C&M occupations (computer network architects, network support specialists, and computer systems analysts) do not hold a bachelor’s degree.

The mid-tech share of C&M employment remains below 20 percent in such hard-core hubs as San Francisco (19.1 percent), Seattle(16.9 percent), and Boston (14.1 percent). By contrast, the mid-tech share of regional C&M employment ranges much higher in a less glamorous list of more workaday locations: Olympia, Wash. (where mid-tech employment pushes 60 percent of C&M employment); Jackson, Mich. (38.7 percent); and Lakeland, Fla. (36.7 percent).

Mid-tech jobs compose more than one-quarter of all tech employment in numerous major Midwestern metros. Such places include Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati;St. Louis; Detroit; Nashville; and Minneapolis-St. Paul. This suggests not just that tech is different (more accessible, and more about implementation than creative leaps) in the Midwest, but also confirms that significant talent resides there, and works at a significant discount, given the low cost of living in the region.

Foxconn Reveal: Also on Upfront, Foxconn's Woo never explained why they suddenly decide to invest in a water system that reduces the amount of water taken from Lake Michigan only after it was highly criticized and legal challenges arose. Woo said, "this is the right thing to do, nothing to do with anything else..!" Rrrrright.

And why all the taxpayer money for Foxconn? Woo put it this way; "Co-investing together with someone that who's taking tremendous risk...that's trying to transform a traditional economy..." So Woo put Wisconsin taxpayers on the hook because Foxconn was taking a risk? Beautiful.