New jobs come from entrepreneurial insight into new ways of profitably producing goods; they are paid for with investments. After a bust, old ratios of prices and wages cease to work, requiring time for entrepreneurs to refigure. But capitalism’s basic scenario — savings, investment, productivity gains, trades — still applies.
Some folks prefer to short-circuit all this, simply robbing Peter to create a job for Paul.
They’re known as politicians.
President Obama proposes spending an additional $447 billion to create jobs, even though our economy is already gummed up with debilitating debt. The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell argues that taking money from the economy’s right pocket (taxes) and putting it in the left pocket (spending) doesn’t create economic growth or long-term employment, but, for those who happen “to be sitting in the left pocket … [i.e.], a state or local politician that’s getting money from the so-called stimulus,” they think “it’s a good thing.”
Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D‑Illinois) says that the “only way out” of our current mess is to offer every one of the 15 million unemployed Americans a $40,000-a-year job … with the federal government.
Most Republican presidential candidates pitch their (quite mythical) job-creating skills, too.
The Republican presidential candidate banned by the national news media — no, not Ron Paul, the other one, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson — put it best. “The fact is,” he said at the only debate he was allowed to appear in, “I can unequivocally say that I did not create a single job while I was governor.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
3 replies on “Got Jobs?”
Why stop at $40,000 a job. Why not create jobs that pay $100,000. Since the jobs that are created are costing in excess of $200,000 per job to create. Seems that these created jobs are coming with a LOT of government overhead since the people who are working these created jobs aren’t taking home $200,000.
I could create jobs at a LOT cheaper rate than the government is doing it. I need to get in line for some Obama-bucks. For every Obama-job I create at bargain cost of $150,000 per job, I will only pocket $50,000, leaving a cool $100,000 per job for the subsidized workers. And there will be no developement costs. They are shovel ready. Err, rake ready. And just in time for fall.
I met Gary Johnson at a fundraiser and see him as the most libertarian of the Republican presidential candidates. From a libertarian perspective, he’s good where Ron Paul is good and good where Ron is bad.
That was why it was SO important to marginalize Governor Johnson early. Which is why the lib/prog media knocked him out of the debate.
He is the best Republican candidate that most Americans have still never heard of and the media will try ot keep it that way.