Calculated Risk
Calculated Risk looks at today's jobs report and finds "more positives than negatives." Among the latter, the deep problem of our 4-million-plus long-term unemployed. Even if Congress had the political will to do something about this, we will still be feeling the effects of this problem in lost wages, weakened earning power, foreclosed homes, delayed health care and broken families for a long, long time.
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Here's the thing: if the GOP was right about the wealthy being job creators, two things would be true: #1 - the Democrats would be on board with the tax cuts, because job growth makes them look good; #2 - by this point, we'd be swimming in jobs. Since #2 isn't true, and doesn't seem to be likely to come true in this universe, #1 is not going to happen.
Instead, the job growth is IN SPITE of the party that cries the most about unemployment, revealing the GOP's false front.
Gad. Do the poor create jobs? No. Do consumers create jobs? No. Who creates jobs? People with an idea and the money to pursue it. Business always comes first and as long as it feels like any investment is likely to lose money rather than make money, business will continue to hoard.
CONSUMERS, Shooter, do create the jobs. If BUSINESS doesn't have customers for their products, they go OUT OF BUSINESS. The poor create jobs if they have any income at all, because they SPEND it all on what BUSINESS is willing to sell them. Where has BUSINESS gotten its money? Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan getting OUR TAX DOLLARS to provide services to our military and it doesn't seem to matter if, say, Halliburton, doesn't provide good services; SUBSIDIES for oil, ethanol, etc. that BUSINESS doesn't need; SELLING their GOODs and SERVICES to the government who pays them with OUR TAX DOLLARS. Even the "FOOD STAMP" programs creates jobs for the BUSINESS that SELLS to the people on the SNAP program the groceries they buy. BUSINESS get good profit from SNAP. Next, you are going to tell me that BUSINESS wants to cut ENTITLEMENTS. That's a laugh! Many in BUSINESS would go out of BUSINESS if ENTITLEMENTS were cut. BUSINESS likes it when ENTITLEMENTS are OUTSOURCED, like MEDICARE ADVANTAGE, but CUT them --- NEVER! And you know it, SHOOTER!
So we tax businesses more so they can fund food stamps so they can pay employees and stay in business. Bottom line is its takes everybody working together to make the world go around. Not making half of the country pay in and making the ones whos selling goods and providing services pay in sounds like a losing properstition in the long run. Eventualy the well will run dry and looting and rioting will happen.
Even those who came up with the supply-side lie don't believe it anymore.
Bruce Bartlett has served in various functions under a number of conservative leaders, including Congressman Ron Paul, President Ronald Reagan, and President George H. W. Bush. Barlett wrote “Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action” and co-edited “The Supply-Side Solution.” He served on the House banking committee and wrote for the National Center for Policy Analysis, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. And he now admits he was wrong: while supply-side economics may have made sense in the ’70s and ’80s, it has no place in America’s modern economic policy.
Bartlett spoke with “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer about how he came to realize that stimulus is the key to reviving a struggling economy — not lower tax rates. Bartlett said he came to this conclusion while working on a book about the Great Depression: “I convinced myself John Maynard Keynes was right.” He argues that what the economy needed during the 2008 financial crisis was “an easy money policy. … I think our problem is we didn’t get enough.”
Most Republicans still believe lowering tax rates, not increasing spending, is the way to go because “they only listen to people on their own side,” Barlett says. “They never ever reach out to anybody who’s not part of the clan.”
Full interview at http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/former-reagan-adviser-bruce-bartlett-the-economy-needs-more-stimulus-not-tax-cuts/
Also, Shooter, riddle me this... If the business has no customers because they have no money to spend on the product, what happens to the business? So, no, business does NOT create jobs, customers and their demand create them. Without that, you have no business. Your claim that consumers don't create jobs belies your ignorance of actual economics.
high rolla, we wouldn't have to raise taxes the rich and their businesses now if they hadn't manipulated the system for the last 30 years to funnel all the money into their hands. over that time, wages have remained essentially flat and benefits have gone down for the workers of those businesses while productivity has reached all-time highs. meanwhile profits have soared and the people who run those businesses have pocketed obscene amounts of money.
you speak like the "makers and takers" crowd. for your information, there are only a miniscule number of people who don't want to work. just about everybody wants a job to support their family. just about everybody who is able to work wants to work. the best part of your "half" are either handicapped, sick, retired or out of work through no fault of their own.
you may be right about the looting and rioting though. if enough people find out who did this to them and how much they have profited.
Business's will not hire one additional person until they foresee an increased demand for their products. Even if people want to buy a product, they have to have the money to buy it.
So what exactly would be the purpose of owning a business and taking a risk of losing it all if you gave all the profit to the workers. I just dont see the logic the businessman like it or not is not in business for its employees. Its sad but true they are not in business for the employee. If the businessman has to pay the government so the government can give that money to people so they can give it back to the businesses then that just seems to be a big waste of time. Basicaly what we are saying is we dont want people being rich we want everybody at the same econmic level.
"So what exactly would be the purpose of owning a business and taking a risk of losing it all if you gave all the profit to the workers."
High rolla, no business person does this. Every thing you said after that didn't matter. Take some time and read about Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development is talked about by most companies and practiced by few.
If you open a business you either have to borrow money are use money you have saved. Thats why you rent a bulding before you ever buy one just in case you business fails. For some reason we want to reward the workers as if they took the risk whereas all they lose is a job. We seem to want to do away with the rich and elimnate business. Im not sure what we are thinking when we take all of their money what are we going to do?
OK people, it's time to be literal. Who pays you, your employer, or a gang of consumers? Where do consumers get their money? If there's no business where do you think actual, literal, jobs and tax revenues come from?
This should be interesting.
Who pays the overhead for the business? Who supplies the money coming in to keep the lights on? Who pays the money that goes to salaries, bonuses, further investment in the business? The business is part of the cycle, not the be-all-end-all that you pretend that it is. Businesses don't CREATE money; they collect it from CONSUMERS, who acquire it from all sorts of places: employment, government spending, investments, inheritance, and (especially in this season, when people can't decide what gift to give) as presents. You pretend that businesses are the gods of commerce; instead, they are its slaves, and are yoked to the consumers' will. After all, isn't that the free market? Businesses don't survive without a base of customers, simple as that, and they don't HAVE customers without the "common folk" having money. Tax breaks for a business don't matter if they don't make enough to PAY taxes.
Hmmm. Let me try it this way. You guys are like the underpants gnomes.
or
This is exactly what you sound like. It seems you have been so consistently served, you don't see the servant anymore. You take the presence of of everything you want for granted, and have zero idea what it takes for consumables to come within reaching distance for you.
Either that or business is so reviled that it's become a necessary evil, that if there were a way to get rid of it, so much the better. But sadly we can't get rid of business because ......?
Or lastly, and very likely, pitching the consumer as the ultimate engine of the economy, is good for the recipients of free stuff. So which is it?
I provided you step 2 above for the latter; reading is fundamental, Shooter! You can keep reviling the truth, but it doesn't make you any more correct. Your version sounds like "You pukes should be grateful business even deigns to sell to you! It's completely reasonable to let them do whatever the hell they want, and you should just take it in the pants and like it!" Can you be any more of a trolling tool?
"For some reason we want to reward the workers as if they took the risk whereas all they lose is a job."
High rolla,
The workers do indeed have risk. They make their decisions to get a home mortgage, car loan, get married and start a family and they have to think of the risk that the company might not do well and then what will I do. There is much risk for all.
Keep in mind if you have a job and decide you want to try a business and quit your job and the business fails you probaly want be able to get that job back. Its a big risk if your risking it all. Now if you were born with a silver spoon and have the business handed to you thats a little different. Unfortunaly we are saying that being sucessful is a bad thing now a days. So basicaly I think that the people who have alot of money will leave this great country and take everything they can with them. i just dont see them staying around when they are being demonised for being rich. Im sure some will stay but I think the govenment will end up owning mostly everything.
If you look at the shape of each curve, you can see that the recovery is as good as most and better than some. You simply can't compare this recession to others in our lifetime--it was much deeper.
Unlike the Great Depression (when Hoover did nothing for 3 years), this time we (Obama) took decisive steps right away to get the economy back on it's feet.
and think how much bigger those steps would have been without the republican leg-irons. we might already be out from under.
When is Congress going to wake up and realize that millions could be employed taking care of Federal, State, and municipal properties?
The Feds OWN millions of acres of forest and range land, especially in the West. These properties are in desperate need of maintenance, especially periodic thinning of scrub and other wildfire fuels.
The States own the Interstate Freeway System. These freeways were designed to last 40-50 years, and they are now 50+ years old. They are in need of upgrade and repair, especially the bridges.
Municipalities own thousands (if not millions) of condemned buildings dumped on them by the private sector. Abandoned factories, shops, churches, and homes need to be torn down in cities across the nation. These buildings are havens for drug dealers, prostitution, and other criminal activity and they have to go.
In a time of record long-term unemployment, the cost to address these issues will never be cheaper. Just in terms of cost, it is time for our government to do the right thing and maintain its properties (forests, roads, and publicly owned buildings).
In a recession, unemployment is high and labor costs low; interest rates are low, near zero, if you're going to borrow money, now's the time to do it.
It is simply good business to maintain plant property/infrastructure.
Even an old, red neck hillbilly like me can see what should happen now.
...but because the Man has this really good tan, McConnell, McCain, Coulter, Palin, Limbaugh, the Taliban/Teaparty would rather scuttle the American economy than help him help them.
...because they are short-sighted, grasping, self-serving plutocrats Adelson, Murdoch, the Kochs, Trump, Romney, (the owners of the Taliban/Teaparty) they are willing to kill the goose to get the golden eggs.
...because they are willing to do or say anything for money, O'Reilly, Rubio, the Stepford legislators, DeMint (the plutocrats' pets) they think everyone has a price and don't understand, can't understand anyone not willing to do or say anything for money.
None of them are capable of empathy. No one else is real to them. Others are inanimate objects.
Excuse me John, Obama has severed the requirement for work in exchange for benefits. Making these poor unfortunate souls labor in exchange for money, is indecent, inequitable, and inhuman. You should be ashamed of yourself.
/snark.
Shooter, like Hannity, you are either totally uninformed or a bald faced liar. I don't think you are uninformed --- and neither is Hannity.
The unemployment rate is at a 4 year low and we are moving forward. No way in hell should we extend the unemplyoment benefits are do another stimulus. Also if we are going to have a 2% payroll tax cut it should come out of the fed income tax not our own social secutiy contributions.
John seeking enlightenment, #3,
I agree.
Tell it to the T-party. They make the rules today.
Shooter, that claim was debunked four months ago. Get with the times.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/gutting-welfare-to-work/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/07/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-barack-obamas-plan-abandons-tenet/
Check your pants, they may be engulfed in flame.
Interesting... he comes back around to pretend that businesses are the lords of the business world, but he declines to respond to proof that he knows not what he speaks of. No, actually, not interesting, typical Shooter BS.
Ok where is our resident Econo-Troll when you need him...
Mangst, #3.1,
Excellent post. If Obama gives one inch to these subversive, misguided ideologues in the T-Party congress, I will lose all respect for him forever. These entitlements are not trophies to be thrown to the wolves. They do not belong on the table.
The GOP wants to raise the Medicare age to 67; a truly immoral and expensive idea, a bonus to the BIG pharmaceuticals, and a terrible cost to the elderly and vulnerable.
President Obama, do not do this. It is wrong. It is morally wrong.
Do not cast pearls before swine.
I agree India thats why I was floored when I went to the ss website and found out the so called 2% payroll tax is comnig out of our ss contributions. Obama really screwed us on that hes calling 2% less that we put into our social security a payroll tax cut. Hello he got us because ss is our money for later on down the road. Why didnt he take it out of our fed income tax instead?
idiot, social security payroll deductions are not "your money" to use down the road. they support current retirees. it's your kid's money (or likely somebody else's kid's money) that will support your retirement. by the bye, the social security fund wouldn't be looking at a shortfall down the road if the rich folks paid the same percentage that the poor and middle class workers do. and the current rate is a TEMPORARY measure to put more money into the hands of workers so they can buy stuff from your "holy" businesses thereby stimulating the economy. the only downside is that the fat cats will profit from all the economic stimulus more than the workers.
Wait a minute thats all we been hearing is how ss is not an entiltement its money we paid in. Think about it now if the 2% went in to ss that would be more money going in to pay out. If we get a 2% tax cut it should not come out of ss it should come out of fed income tax. Basicaly ss is a ponze scheme in which in the private sector would be illegal. Bottom line is ss is paying out more than its bring in. Im confussed because the employer (rich folks) pays 6.2% and the employee pays 4.2%. So the rich folk is paying and in fact if you are a amall business you have to pay 12%. Bottom line is will will be seeing looting and rioting in the future I dont know how long but its coming. This idea of thinking only a % of the population needs to pay for the other % is not going to end very well.
Having been unemployed for over a year at least twice in my life, once in the 1970s and again in the 1990s, I know first hand the human cost as well as the economic cost of long term unemployment. I am now 72 and living on SS and a very small pension from the defense contractor where I worked (first in Public Relations and then in Quality Control writing quality control procedures) in the 1980s. I also have a small vegetable farm that supplements these two sources of steady income that some of you seem to think are handouts.
In 1992 I cashed out all my other retirement savings and moved from the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas to my current home just outside Cortez, Colorado. I was able to buy my three acres of land for $11,000.00 in cash and an old mobile home for $6,000.00. The only job I could get was as a hostess at a locally owned restaurant. Because I owned my land and mobile home and my pickup truck, I was able to make it on roughly $600.00 a month. I could not sell my house in Texas until into the spring of 1993, and I barely got $2,000.00 out of it after paying on the mortgage for 13 years. I also got $5,000.00 in the spring of 1993 from an elderly cousin who died in 1992.
I worked at the restaurant and in the summers developed my vegetable garden into one of the most productive in the county for six years at which time I was able to get a job as a secretary for a lawyer making about $18,000.00 a year. I saved as much as I could from my salary, my garden and when I turned 65 and a half from my Social Security and my company pension so that in 2006, I was able to build a nice little house that is well built and energy efficient. If I were still in the old mobile home I would be really struggling to pay my propane bill.
These are the realities that many of the unemployed face. I have a Ph.D. in English from the Univ. of Penn. and my first period of unemployment came when I could not get tenure at the university where I was teaching and colleges/universities all over the country were not hiring. My second period of unemployment came just after I turned 50.
According the what was reported on Melissa Harris-Perry's show this morning, many of the long term unemployed are over 50, they are people with job experience and skills. But companies want young people who can be paid less. I know this story; I've lived it.
I would like to know what Shooter, High rolla, and Temporary Me do for a living and how old they are. It has been said that you should not criticize someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes. I have walked in these unemployed peoples' shoes, or we might say they are now walking in mine. Have you Shooter, High rolla, and Temporary Me walked in my shoes? Do you do as much work, real hard physical labor, in a day as I do before breakfast in the summer when I am moving irrigation water in my vetetable garden? Or as a restaurant worker does in an hour before you get your order at Dennys?
I am a disabled combat vet who just became 100% disabled in feb of this year. I have been denied for ss disabilty benefits and have had to get a lawyer to appeal. I have applied for service connected disabilty but they say that will be aug of next year. I have about 5k left in my saving for I have been paying all my bills with it.If a run out before I get my diabilty I will have to borrow the money from a family member and then pay it back. I also have been homeless for a brief period in LAS Vegas even then I went to day labor and worked during the day and got a paycheck the same day. So yes i have walked a many of miles and slept in the bushes unemployed but did not get a unemployment check. I imagine if i was getting one I wouldnt have lined up at 5 am to work day labor for 5.15 hr.
High rolla: Did you not get unemployment because you were not eligible or because you were too proud to take it? If the latter, I think you suffered unnecessarily. We all pay for these benefits. If you were employed for any time as full time employee, your employer paid into the state unemployment fund. That as well as any medical benefits, life insurance, retirement, disability is part of your pay package. You earn these benefits.
One of the troubles with our entire discussion of taxes and benefits is that we keep talking about numbers and percentages. What your story and mine adds to the discussion is the human costs of being unable to find a job that pays a living wage. There are people in this country making millions and billions by essentially playing with numbers while there are at least hundreds of thousands like you who have given not just money into the system but your health in service of this country to assure that these very wealthy people can continue to play their games, often times with our money.
"Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,/ That slaves your ordinance, that will not see/ Because he does not feel, feel your pow'r quickly;/ So distribution should undo excess,/ And each man have enough." King Lear, IV, i, 67-70
I hope you get your SS soon.