Obamer's job billFollow

That's all well and good Gbaji, if all that matters to someone is making a profit. If they will sacrifice anything and everything, as long as they get a maximum amount of profit.

However, not everyone in this country feels that profit is the most important thing.

First, our economy has become based on consumerism. While I feel that's not a great thing to base one's economy on, it is what we have done. In order to keep a such an economy rolling, you MUST have a strong middle class that consumes.

If the corporations care one iota about the economy of the USA, it IS their responsibility to do their part. They MUST create middle class jobs, an give decent raises to their workers. Someone MUST "feed the consumer beast".

If corporations refuse to do so, then it falls to the gov't to help out. I would much prefer this not to happen.

I realize that considering this would pop your poor, conservative mind. Thankfully, the majority of people in this country do not think like you.

In all areas of society? Sure. But that's not the case here. We're talking about how to bring about economic recovery. And as much as you rail against evil corporations and their profits, it's those profits which drive our economy. And if you stop and think about it for a moment, you know that this is true. It is the profits generated in the private market which fund the activities of the government. Government is a cost to our economy. Now, when profits in the private market are sufficiently high, we can afford that cost. But when those profits are not high, we can't. That's why we're running high deficits right now.

How on earth can you think that by increasing the costs while decreasing the profits we can somehow reverse this? It makes no damn sense at all.



I'm not sure how this addresses the question at hand. I'm looking at how we go about creating jobs. This has *nothing* to do with consumption.



And they will. But surely you can see that a government which artificially increases the cost to employ people, and threatens to increases taxes on the profits of those corporations will tend to drive those jobs away? You can't possibly be demanding that corporations operate their businesses at a loss out of some kind of patriotic duty? Can't you see that if they do that, our economy will fail?



Corporations (heck, all private businesses) will tend to refuse to make business decisions which cost them more than they generate in revenue. And they are right to do so. Not just out of some kind of evil greed, but also because if they do this, over time the economy will fail. How can you not see this!

You're basically arguing that if the private market refuses to do the wrong thing economically, that the government should step in and do it for them. That seems pretty darn stupid.



I think a growing majority are coming to understand what I'm talking about. People who think like you are (thankfully) becoming the minority. The sad part is that we'll have to wait until another election year to get sufficient numbers of Republicans in congress and in the white house to make the changes that need to be made. This means that millions of americans will have to suffer for another year and a half before we can make the right choice and do the right things and fix the mess the Dems have created of our economy.

Honestly, despite multiple attempts to explain this, it appears like it's just not sinking in. I'll try one more time:

Jobs don't exist solely to put money into people's pockets so they can spend it buying stuff. That's only half of the value of a job. The other half is the productive result of the labor itself. The problem is that somewhere along the line the political left has adopted an ideological belief that the only important part of the job is the salary the worker earns. As a result, they embark on the creation of jobs without considering the other half of the equation. They don't see anything wrong with "spending money to create jobs".

But it is the wrong way to do it. Yes, in the short term you can lower unemployment and you can increase consumption. But that lasts only as long as you keep spending money. Once the money runs out, the jobs will disappear and those demand side effects will disappear with them. The only way to really fix the economy is to create sustainable jobs. Those are jobs which don't cost us money to create, but which actually generate more money than they cost. These jobs will continue to exist because they are profitable.

And instead of costing us tax dollars, they will generate tax dollars. Do this correctly, and there's no need to raise taxes or create massive jobs subsidies. But you have to get over your ideological hatred of corporate profits. By attacking those, you are attacking your own economic prosperity. Which seems kinda silly.

So you agree that Obama's jobs plan is insane? Great!

It's a cushion. /sigh

Whatever helps you believe I was commenting on anything political at all and not your admittance of "Hey, I keep doing this and it doesn't work, so I'll do it again" part, you go right ahead.

Well, lets see. Four years ago we had the same Bush tax rates in effect and the same loopholes in our tax code. Yet, at that time, we had a 5% unemployment rate, and shrinking deficits and debt. So the worst we can say is that those things didn't prevent low unemployment, high GDP growth, and shrinking debt.

What "different results" did you think you were talking about?

Which in no way supports the assertion that it was taxes not being high enough on the rich that caused the collapsing economy in the first place, much less the assertion that failing to raise taxes on the rich is the equivalent of repeating a failed action and expecting different results. Your cart is about 8 steps ahead of your horse.

Well, in typical fashion you didn't assert anything. Are you claiming that your statement wasn't in support of the idea that cutting taxes and allowing tax loopholes (for the rich of course!) was responsible for our current economic predicament and that doing it again would be repeating the same action and expecting different results? Cause that sure seemed to be what you were saying.

More specifically, you appeared to be dismissing my counter statement by suggesting that it took some time for those things to cause the economy to collapse, so it doesn't matter that it was in better shape 4 years ago. Did you mean something else? Cause that seems like the most reasonable interpretation of your post.



Ok. But there's an issue over directionality going on here as well. I'm not proposing that we further lower tax rates or create more tax loopholes. I'm saying that we should not eliminate those that currently exist. I'm saying we should keep our taxes the same because tax rate changes wasn't what caused this problem.

It was that position by me which prompted rmc's statement about repeating the same action and getting different results. So the "same action" isn't really about changing tax rates to benefit "the rich" but not changing them to hurt them.



Except that there is a correlation between their wealth and the general economy. Interestingly enough, if there wasn't, they'd have no reason *not* to hire more people in the domestic market. The reality though is that economic conditions affect their profits. Tax rates affect their profits. The cost of employment affects their profits. All of those things are taken into account when deciding where to invest their money.

What the Dems have done over the last few years is make it less profitable to create jobs in the US. Why is anyone surprised that the result of this is fewer jobs being created in the US?



How much of the money though? See, there's the problem. You seem to want to hold them to some kind of one to one correlation between reduced taxes paid and jobs created. But that doesn't hold true in the public sector either, does it? The one thing you can count on is that the more money companies can make in the US, the more people they will hire. The less money they can make, the fewer people they will hire. It's all relative, but you seem to hold them to a different standard for some reason.


The other thing you can count on is that jobs created in the private sector will generally be productive jobs, while those created with public money (even subsidies of private sector jobs) will generally be less productive. If the jobs produced more profit for the company than they cost, they would create them right now. So somewhat by definition, if the government has to step in to fund those jobs directly, those jobs will not produce more than they cost.


The way to create jobs is to change the variables in the equation so that hiring people becomes more profitable. Do that, and the companies will create jobs. You don't need some magical guarantee. Their own desire for profit will assure that it happens.

Depends on how the union is structured and operates, but by and large, yes. You hadn't figured this out from the hundreds of posts I've made over the years about the harmful economic effect of unions?



Does you explanation include an example like what happened when Boeing attempted to open a manufacturing facility in a non-union state just as you are saying they should?



Nope. Ever think maybe you're missing something? I'll give you a hint: Wages alone aren't really that much of a factor when considering the total cost of opening up a plant in one location over another. Um... And unions are only part of the problem. Tax rates. Over the top environmental regulations. Mandates and regulations regarding employment in general. Construction costs. Power costs. Shipping costs. There are dozens of factors involved.

It's not a simple all or nothing equation. It's a matter of degrees. Each of those factors are weighed when a company makes a decision like that. Each thing counts, but only to the degree that factor affects that particular decision. That's why some companies will move operations across state lines based on certain factors and some will move them across national lines. That's why sometimes a union presence has a major effect, and sometimes it doesn't.


If your argument held water, then there should be absolutely zero jobs in the US at all which could be done elsewhere unless the government stepped in and forced companies to employ people here. Yet, that's clearly not the case. There are millions of people who are employed in the US doing jobs which could be done in another country if the only factor to consider was the cost of the labor itself. And a whole hell of a lot of those companies are not required to do so by the government.



No. Profit demands that the company generate the most revenue while spending the least amount of money. The cost of labor is only one factor. It has an effect, everything else staying the same. But it's not the all-or-nothing effect you seem to be claiming it to be. It can't be.




I do see that. I also see the bigger picture though. I happen to know first hand, for example, that while the labor cost in a location like Hydrabad is less than that in the US, the cost to ship materials and maintain them is greater. Also, power is less reliable, and communication isn't as good. I might put a call center there, but I'd be hesitant to put a data center that serves some kind of globally accessible applications there. I might put some engineers and some remote access equipment there so they can do design work remotely, but I'd put the bulk of my engineers and the equipment itself somewhere else.

I know this because I've seen the cost sheets for these sorts of decisions. And guess what? Labor cost is only one factor, and it's hardly the most significant one.



California is leading the country in terms of making the sort of mistakes the Dems are trying to push. We're a great example of just how bad a job market can get if you push a big government agenda. Do you know that there are nearly zero manufacturing jobs at all in California? And guess what? That's not about labor costs either. It's about over the top environmental regulations. It's about import and export taxes. Why do you suppose that the biggest industries in California are based on intellectual property? It's because there's no physical objects being built, or imported, or exported. That's why we make movies, and tv shows, and do bio-research, and develop computer chip and cell phones, and write computer programs.

That works out "ok", but we've driven pretty much everything else out of the state. Which means that our revenue is reduced as a result. What do you suppose happens when the liberals who run this state decide that it's time to more heavily tax intellectual property creation as well? If history is any indicator, those industries will move out of the state as well. Heck. we're already seeing large portions of the film/tv industry move away. Very few films are actually filmed in LA anymore (cept **** I suppose). The folks who produce them live there, and often keep their business addresses there, and they have the premiers there, but most of the actual work is done elsewhere.


The clear pattern is that when government attempts to take a bigger slice of some economic activity, that activity will move elsewhere. It's hardly controversial to point this out, right? It's kinda obvious. Any rational person would do their business where they'll make the most money. And this is *not* always about labor costs. That's a factor, but not the whole picture.

Agreed. you should give them massive tax credits whenever they invest in the American economy but only when they invest in the American economy. For every new job they create, give them 75% as a tax credit of what that employee would have received had they remained on Employment Insurance or Welfare. (Btw, I pulled that number out of my ***, doesn't have to be 75%, just something substantial enough to incent them to put the money at home and not abroad).

Yeah, fuck America!