Speaker Spotlight - Dr. Thomas LaGrelius

Posted: 2013-04-11

One of the biggest changes in American life over the last one hundred years is due to start impacting your life in a matter of months. “Obamacare” will radically change the practice of medicine and you will be personally affected by it.

What kind of impact will it have on your life? Find out from a very prominent Doctor at the next meeting of the Lincoln Clubs!

Dr. Thomas LaGrelius is a diplomate of the American  Board  of  Family  Practice  and  Geriatric  Medicine, and  a  fellow  of  the  American  Academy  of  Family Physicians.

He has practiced medicine in Los Angeles County for over 35 years.  Dr. LaGrelius has a solo practice in Torrance. He operates a  primary  care  concierge practice,  which  is  limited  to  600  patients  with  an  annual  fee.  This  design  allows  him  to  spend  much  more  time  with  patients, since typical  primary care practices have  between 2,000 – 3,000 patients.  In addition to being available 24/7,  he  makes  house  calls  and  continues  to  follow  his patients  in  the  hospital, a  rarity  these  days.

Dr. LaGrelius serves on numerous medical boards and has a passion for flying airplanes.  He is married to Patti and has three children and two granddaughters.

The Battle We Must Fight

Posted: 2012-04-26

California is a solid red political state - if you leave out the Bay Area and Los Angeles County.

These two "black holes" have dragged us as a state into the liberal Democrat quagmire regularly during the 21st century. Election returns make it clear that Republicans must address one of these black holes to win statewide in California on more than an occasional basis. We don't have to win the targeted black hole, but we must be able to pull 40% of the vote.

Republican oriented entities do not have nearly the resources of our opposition, and trying to deal with both of our black holes at once is far beyond our capabilities. Your continued presence in California is the strongest indicator that you haven't yet given up on the Golden State. So if you're staying here, and are a Republican who understands the importance of the political battle we are involved in for the future of our businesses, our children and grandchildren and our very country, how do you select which black hole to tackle?

The chart below shows the number of registered Republicans in the expanded eleven county Bay Area (Alameda,Contra Costa, Solano,Napa, Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey) as compared to Los Angeles County. Please note that while Republican registration has declined in both areas, the decline has been faster in the Bay Area.

In this century, Republican registration has declined by 143,500 in Los Angeles County but by 216,665 in the Bay Area. That amounts to 73,165 more Republicans lost in the Bay Area on a smaller population of under seven and a half million compared to Los Angeles County's ten million people.

The current critical mass of Republicans is much larger in Los Angeles County at just over one million registered GOP voters today versus three quarters of a million for the entire eleven county Bay Area.

The Bay Area region has eleven Republican county central committees with minimal functionality and inter county coordination. Los Angeles County has one functional county central committee headed by a competent Chairman.

The Bay Area has the Northern California Lincoln Club, which is not involved in the party mechanics of voter registration and GOTV efforts. Los Angeles County has the Los Angeles County Lincoln Clubs (LACLC), a network of business and professional leaders who regularly meet in eight component chapters covering all areas of the county. LACLC has worked closely with the county party in the recent past and still has the ability to work directly with them as desired.

LACLC has also taken the leadership role in this century in Republican voter registration. Working with the state and county parties, the Lincoln Clubs have put together their own voter registration network that registered over a quarter million new Republicans and is directly responsible for the continued existence of one million GOP voters in Los Angeles County.

The overwhelming electoral and demographic verdict is that the Republican Party must compete in one of its two political black holes in California to make a comeback. Failure is not an option for those of us who continue to have our families and businesses located here.

Which one do you pick?

American Manufacturing Has Declined More Than Most Experts Have Thought

Posted: 2012-03-30

A new report released by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) presents a strong case that manufacturing has declined more during the last decade than it did during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  It's gratifying to finally see a well-respected non-partisan "think tank" release a report based on empirical data that corroborates what those of working in the manufacturing industry have experienced, about which I have been speaking and writing since 2003.
 
One of the main points of the report is that during the Great Depression, we lost 30.9 percent of manufacturing jobs, but in the decade of 2000-2010, we lost 33.1 percent of manufacturing jobs.  It becomes more serious when you realize that in the Great Depression, manufacturing accounted for 43 percent of jobs lost and 34 percent of all jobs at the time, but now manufacturing only represents about 11 percent of all jobs, but nearly one-third of the job loss.  This percentage loss represents 5.7 million manufacturing jobs.  The report states, "On average, 1,276 manufacturing jobs were lost every day for the past 12 years.   A net of 66,486 manufacturing establishments closed, from 404,758 in 2000 down to 338,273 in 2011. In other words, on each day since the year 2000, America had, on average, 17 fewer manufacturing establishments than it had the previous day."
 
When you understand the multiplier effect of manufacturing jobs, creating 2-3 supporting jobs, this loss of manufacturing jobs represents 11 to 17 million jobs.  The report states, "In fact, in January 2012 there were more unemployed Americans (12.8 million) than there were Americans who worked in manufacturing (just under 12 million)."  No wonder we have the high local, state, and federal deficits that we are experiencing ─ there are fewer taxpayers and more benefit collectors. 
 
The two million manufacturing jobs we lost during the Great Recession was added to the over 3.7 million we had already lost.  After the recession ended, the report states "just 166,000, or 8.2 percent, returned. That leaves 91.8 percent of jobs to be recovered.  At the rate of growth in manufacturing jobs in 2011, it would take until at least 2020 for employment to return to where the economy was in terms of manufacturing jobs at the end of 2007.   In reality...U.S. manufacturing has been in a state of structural decline due to loss of U.S. competitiveness, not temporary decline based on the business cycle."
 
It's obvious that with unemployment at 8.3 percent, "all those jobs have not been recreated in other industries."  If manufacturing declines further, there are no guarantees that other jobs will appear to replace those lost in manufacturing.  The authors validate what I've written in my book and previous articles:  "manufacturing jobs pay more; manufacturing is a source of good jobs for non-college-educated workers; and manufacturing is the key driver of innovation-without manufacturing, non-manufacturing innovation jobs (for example, research and design) will not thrive."
 
For years, most economists, experts, and government officials have said that the decline in manufacturing is a natural outcome of our transformation from an industrial society to a post-industrial society. "This decline is often cited by defenders as "normal" and in line with what is happening in other countries. In this "post-industrial" view, advanced nations are transitioning from factories to services; the greater and faster the loss of manufacturing, the more successful nations are in mastering the transition."
 
The authors concede that there is "some truth to the post-industrialists' view.  Advanced economies naturally see manufacturing jobs contribute to a smaller share of total employment, since manufacturing productivity is typically higher than non-manufacturing productivity.  But normally the loss is modest and gradual, in contrast to the United States where in the last decade it was sudden and steep."  In addition, "advanced nations do lose some lower-value-added, lower-skill, commodity-based manufacturing to lower-wage nations.   But ...they also increase their demand for the higher-value-added products that developed nations should naturally produce...the process of global integration does not and should not naturally lead to the deindustrialization of developed economies, but rather to the transformation of their industrial bases toward more complex, higher-value-added production."
 
These same experts have denied that manufacturing has been in decline, arguing that manufacturing became incredibly productive just like agriculture did a century earlier so that fewer workers are needed in the industry.  The authors state that "Virtually everyone makes the argument that massive manufacturing job decline is a sign of success: manufacturers are using technology to automate work and to become more efficient...Manufacturing is like agriculture" has been the dominant story.  The United States produces more food than ever, but because farming has become so efficient, it requires a very small share of U.S. workers to grow and harvest the food. So while manufacturing productivity growth may be tough on workers, job loss is seen as a sign of strength, not weakness."
 
It's true that job loss could be result of increased productivity, but what these experts have ignored is that manufacturing's share of the Gross Domestic Product (GD) declined from 15 percent in 2000 to 11.0 percent in 2009.   While manufacturing has declined as a share of GDP in the United States and some other nations, such as Canada, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom," it is stable or even growing in many others (including Austria, China, Finland, Germany, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.)"
 The ITIF report dispels the myth that increased productivity is the reason for the job loss with a review of the productivity of various manufacturing industry sectors, showing that in 2010, "13 of the 19 manufacturing sectors (employing 55 percent of manufacturing workers) were producing less than they there were in 2000 in terms of inflation-adjusted output."
 
In addition, the authors assert that "the government's official calculation of manufacturing output growth, and by definition productivity, is significantly overstated.  " Correcting for biases in the official data, ITIF finds that from 2000 to 2010, U.S. manufacturing labor productivity growth was overstated by a remarkable 122 percent. Moreover, manufacturing output, instead of increasing at the reported 16 percent rate, in fact fell by 11 percent over the period."  This was during a period when the U. S. GDP increased by 17 percent.
Besides, the report states that "it is not clear how productivity could be the culprit behind the large share of job loss in the 2000s when manufacturing labor productivity (as measured by the official value added data) was not substantially different in the 1990s than it was in the 2000s.  During the 1990s, manufacturing jobs fell by one percent, while labor productivity increased by 53 percent. In the 2000s, manufacturing jobs fell by 33 percent while productivity increased by 66 percent...the 2000s productivity number is actually significantly overstated, even more so than the 1990s figure. Adjusting for bias in the data, the actual productivity growth in the 2000s was just 32 percent."
 
The authors provide evidence that "there are serious problems with how the U.S. government measures manufacturing output that cause it to significantly overstate output and, by extension, productivity.   In order to see how productivity and output are overstated, it is necessary to understand both concepts."
 
Their explanation is too complicated to consider in this short article, but is well worth reading in the report.  They conclude "that there are substantial upward biases in the U.S. government's official statistics and that real manufacturing output and productivity growth is significantly overstated. The most serious bias relates to the computers and electronics industry (NAICS 334)-its output is vastly overstated. Correcting for these statistical biases, we see that the base of U.S. manufacturing has eroded faster over the past decade than at any time since WWII, when the United States began compiling the statistics."
 
I can substantiate this conclusion from my experience as a manufacturers' representative for American companies who perform fabrication services, such as plastic and rubber molding, metal stamping and casting, machining, and sheet metal fabrication for other American manufacturers.  While many of the manufacturers in my sales territory of southern California may still be assembling their products in the U. S., many of the components and subassemblies they are using have been produced offshore.  Obviously, it takes fewer American workers to produce the end product because part of the work was actually done by foreign workers. 
 
The problem is that there is no way for the government to track the value of the components and subassemblies that have been produced elsewhere from the value of the product that is sold by the American company. Therefore, the value of the whole product is counted as American productivity without deducting the value of the parts produced outside of the U. S. You can see how American productivity becomes inflated.
 
I hope this report will convince the majority of economists, experts, and government officials recognize that manufacturing is truly in serious decline so that they will look at what are the main reasons:  outsourcing manufacturing offshore and the economic warfare being waged by China against the U. S. 
 
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I know you are probably as busy as I am. If you found it informative, please, forward it to people you know.

 
Sincerely,

Michele Nash-Hoff
President
ElectroFab Sales
Author, Can American Manufacturing be Saved?  Why we should and how we can 
Available at www.savingusmanufacturing.com or www.amazon.com 
 
 

Duke Packs Them In at Long Beach Lincoln Club

Posted: 2013-03-17

A record crowd of close to ninety Lincoln Clubs members and friends filled the main dining room of the Long Beach Yacht Club on Thursday, January 26, 2012 to hear local hero Governor George Deukmejian discuss his career and what's in store for us in the future.
 
He also revealed the reason he has been skeptical of a Lincoln Club in the Long Beach area. It turns out that when Deukmejian was a young legislator in the late 1960's, he tried to start a Long Beach Lincoln Club based on the then new and successful Lincoln Club of Orange County. It didn't work out, and based on that he thought it never would in the Long Beach. To the delight of Lincoln Clubs Chairman Robert A. Virtue and new Long Beach Chapter Chairman Paul Carter in the audience, the Governor conceded it does work in Long Beach and commended Chairmen Virtue and Carter for their outstanding efforts.
 
Governor Deukmejian discussed the current state of affairs in Sacramento and contrasted the current gridlock with the way they used to get things done when he served as Governor from 1983-91.
 
The Long Beach Lincoln Club was founded in 2000 and has provided leadership for Republican business and professional people for the past twelve years. Under the leadership of Long Beach attorney Paul Carter, this growing and revitalized chapter is becoming a major force in the Long Beach area. For further information on the Long Beach Lincoln Club, please contact Dorothy Kistler at dkla1@verizon.net.

Revived Foothills Chapter Breaks Record

Posted: 2013-03-17

Chapter Chairman George Thomas and
his dynamic Co-Chairman wife Bonnie

The Los Angeles County Lincoln Clubs has had hundreds of outstanding chapter meetings over our thirty years of independent existence. As part of the United Republican Finance Committee (URFC) in the 1960s and 70s, we had many more.

But in the four years plus since George and Bonnie Thomas assumed the mantle of leadership of the Foothills Lincoln Club, records have fallen like dominos.

In June 2009, they set the single chapter meeting attendance record with almost 150 paid attendees for legendary conservative icon Bruce Herschensohn.

In early 2010, they broke the chapter membership record of 60 paid members set in 2006 by the formidable Dr. Barbara Stone in the San Gabriel Valley Chapter.

In 2011, they hit the century mark in paid membership at 100!

In 2012, they exceeded 125 paid members. "My goal is to get to 150 and then maintain for awhile" said a confident Co-Chairman Bonnie Thomas.

Each of their monthly meetings has at least 100 attendees at the exclusive Annandale Golf Club in Pasadena to hear excellent speakers while enjoying great company and fine dining.

"George and Bonnie Thomas have done an outstanding job of bringing the free enterprise, limited government message of the Lincoln Clubs to their part of Los Angeles County" said Lincoln Clubs Chairman Robert A. Virtue. "Californians are tired of the deficit spending in Sacramento and Washington. They realize the Republican message of personal and fiscal responsibility is just the medicine California and the rest of the country needs. That is why our organization is growing as we gear up for a big election next year. Great leadership plus a good message equals success"