When you take the people who most need work and connect them with the work that most needs doing, you save. You save that young person’s life, you save a whole bunch of money, and you save the soul of this country when you invest and give people a chance, give people hope, give people opportunity.
Interpretation
Connecting those in need of work with available opportunities creates positive change.
This quote emphasizes the profound impact of providing employment opportunities to those who are struggling. By connecting individuals in need with work that needs to be done, we not only transform lives and offer hope but also contribute to the broader welfare of society. Investing in people creates a ripple effect of positive outcomes, both personally and economically.
In practice
In a speech to a non-profit organization focused on job training.
The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy - one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment.
Government-mandated and -subsidized ethanol from corn will go down in history as the "Iraq War" of environmental solutions: ill-considered, costly, and disastrous.
We have the chance to build this new energy economy in ways that reflect our deepest values of inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity for everyone.
Will the new environmental leaders fight for eco-equity in this new "green economy" they are birthing?
Our point of view is, lets not be so elitist that we can't honor good, hard, dignified, ennobling work: people working with their hands, building things, putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, working on organic agriculture, building wind farms. We don't have robots in society, so somebody has to do that work. Lets make sure that the people who can use that work get a chance to do it. I see that as a first step toward bigger and better things.
We pull out of the ground death, we burn death in our power plants, and then we act shocked when we get death in the form of oil spills and global warming.
Tomorrow is no place to place your better days.
Set your target and keep trying until you reach it.
In the end, the overriding factor in whether or not you realize your dreams is going to be you. Not the world. YOU.
If you find yourself stuck in the middle there is only one way to go, forward.
As long as I can compete, I won't quit. Reaching three-thousand is not the finish line as long as I can contribute.
Your voice can change the world.
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