Friday, November 2, 2012
Miscellaneous 145
1) Eleanor Clift has completely lost it. The woman is now saying that President Obama is the rightful heir to George McGovern as a politician of peace. PEACE - Mr. drone attacks in four counties, Mr. kill list, Mr. surge in Afghanistan. I'm telling you here, folks. If President Obama is the rightful heir to George McGovern, can you even begin to imagine what the rightful heir to President Bush is going to look like? Ka-boom!............2) I've got good news and bad news for Romney. The good news is that there's a plethora of legitimate criticism that one could direct toward President Obama's foreign policy. The bad news is that a substantial chunk of it comes from the left.............3) I really wish that politicians like Obama and Gingrich would cease and desist with all of this "I/we created X millions of jobs" bullshit. I mean, yeah, I suppose that the government can create a business-friendly climate and all but jobs are ultimately created by entrepreneurs who bring to market goods and services that the public wishes to procure. For politicians to so flagrantly try and take credit for it rather unseemly in my book.
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I think most people would say that government can destroy jobs. Right? So, if they can do one (destroy), why not the other (create)? It is just the opposite action.
I tend to think of it as destroying jobs, either way.
But with some policies, such as getting rid of forced unionization, overtaxation, and over-regulation, the government destroys a lot fewer jobs than are destroyed if these three factors are present.
So you end up with a job-creating situation in which the private sector is able to make enough jobs in large numbers that the amount of them killed by government policy is greatly exceeded.
That's an interesting perspective. So, do you thing that people who actually work for government agencies do not have "real" jobs? Is it because they are paid with tax dollars? And if so, how about businesses that exist on tax dollars? Are they not "real" businesses?
I think that the American economy is a powerful engine that has been able to withstand a number of incompetent Presidents; Hoover, FDR, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Bush 2, and now unfortunately Obama.
Jerry: Government jobs of course are an exception to this. Government does indeed create government jobs. Many of them are necessary. But so many are not, and so many are massively overpaid.
And where does the money come from to pay the millionaires loafing on the public dole? From real hard working Americans and companies that employ them.
I would also say, however, that a President probably gets too much credit (Reagan, Clinton) when things are going good and too much blame (Carter, Bush 1) when things are going badly.
Wouldn't you say that the government buying military equipment creates jobs in the private sector to supply that military equipment, the same as you or me buying a gun creates part of a job to supply that gun?
I forget where I heard this recently, so I can't credit the source, but the guy differentiated government job creation. Jerry, you're arguing that government "legally creates" jobs, as in a government employee is hired and government has created a job.
The conservative argument is that government does not "economically create" jobs. Government does nothing to create value and earn money to support new jobs. It can only tax dollars from the private economy to fund its "legally" created jobs.
Anyway, I thought it was an important distinction.
HR,
That's an interesting distinction. The distinction is in the source of the money which pays the wage. However, I think the impact of that wage on the economy is the same. For example, if I spend $50,000 per year, the things that I spend it on is not dependent on the source of my wage money, be it taxes or business sales.
In terms of jobs that create value, I ask, Do service jobs create value? There are both government service jobs and private business service jobs. Don't they both either create value or don't create value? I don't see how one can and the other can,t.
Jerry: Good way to put it....
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