Opinion: Feb. 23, 2011 buzz: How many ways can we destroy employment opportunities?

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Most viewed and tweeted:

For Wednesday’s Opinion pages, Sen. Dianne Feinstein contributed an Op-Ed about the House’s decision to rescind about $2 billion in Recovery Act funds and loan authority, which would compromise California’s clean energy initiatives and associated jobs. ‘That’s an estimated 76,000 jobs -- many in hard-hit counties such as Kern and Riverside -- gone. That’s thousands of megawatts of clean energy that could power hundreds of thousands of homes -- gone. That’s a smart local investment in a growing global industry -- gone.’

Most commented:

Tim Rutten dominates the comments board, as he usually does. In his most recent column, he argues:
‘For more than a century, democracies with modern economies have recognized the rights of workers to organize and to bargain collectively for wages, working conditions and benefits. Those rights are fundamental to a decent society. The temporary problem with some public employee pension schemes ought not to be used to strip working men and women of that basic protection.’

Most shared on Facebook:

Dean Bakopoulos’ Battleground Wisconsin has inspired a lot of Facebook shares. In his Op-Ed article, he writes, ‎’The concept of upward mobility is collapsing, and it is the resulting total dependence on a paycheck for survival that makes one working class. And for most of us -- professors and painters, poets and plumbers -- that’s the hard reality of contemporary America.’

Do you agree that we’re nation that’s grown dependent and scared?

--Alexandra Le Tellier