"America isn't hiring precisely because of government policy."
Jerry Bower, a guest blogger at CNBC, has good insight into why US companies are not hiring:
Exactly.
America isn't hiring precisely because of government policy. Small business owners, who are usually the first into and the first out of the job pool, are standing by the fence and watching. They are paralyzed by regulatory uncertainty. If they hire someone who ends up doing poorly, will they be able to fire that person? Will they have to pay their health care bills after they've been terminated? If so, for how long? Who will pay for all these stimulus checks? If it will turn out to be small business, why would they hire instead of keeping costs low to prepare for the big tax bill? Where will the market move? Are you in the right business or are your clients in a politically disfavored industry? Are your clients in health care (being nationalized), autos (already nationalized), banking (somewhat nationalized) or any energy production process which uses carbon (pulverized)? Until you know, you don't grow, and until you grow your market, you don't grow your payroll.
Jobs aren't languishing despite the government's best efforts. They're languishing because of them.
Exactly.
posted by Helen at 11:37 AM
10 Comments:
Jobs aren't languishing despite the government's best efforts. They're languishing because of them.
"best efforts" - that should be stoopid efforts. Obama, et al are keeping things in such turmoil everyone is scared to do anything.
A great thinker, some years ago, opined that among the most important features of law is its stability. To change the law, he said, inherently bears a cost, whether we want to admit it or not. Therefore, any proposed change in the law should be studied not merely for its proposed benefits, but for the costs the change would impose. If the former outweigh the latter, the change must be rejected on the grounds of ordinary rationality. More, the state must make it a matter of highest principle to protect the stability of the law. Volatility of law is among the cruelest of injustices a state can inflict upon its people. Do-gooder impulses seldom respect this principle.
Who was that great thinker? Some notable conservative, perhaps? Some well-known architect of the principles of statecraft? Some famous philosopher of liberty?
None of the above. It was Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the 14th Century.
And we think we're so smart.
You're unpatriotic for thinking that small businesses shouldn't have to pay for the health care of people who don't work for them anymore. How dare you not be more concerned about the well-being of others than for your own well-being?
"Imagine you were an idiot. Imagine you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
--Mark Twain
Where I work things have dropped almost completely away. We were doing more in a couple days, on average, than we do in a month these days. Profit is long gone. We can't even create enough cash flow at this time to do more than keep the lights on. It won't surprise me if the owners lock the door and let everyone go within a couple weeks. We're in it deep. Hang on to your hats.
So much for the "progressives" and their alleged smartness. But, then again, there's nothing progressive in their 150 year old failed ideas. I look forward to the distant day when idiots graduated from the Ivy League schools aren't assumed to have the skills to run this nation as it is clear that they don't.
To paraphrase WF Buckley, I'd rather be governed by the first 400 names out of the phonebook than 400 Ivy League Grads.
The government is succeeding brilliantly with its intended goals. Total destruction of the economy is the plan, and it it well under way. This is the way they make everyone entirely dependent on the government and thus easily controlled by the government. National bankruptcy is their goal, and they are right on track. They are flooding the market with worthless fiat money, not worth the paper it is printed on.
People who are able to support themselves and make their own way in the world tend to be independent and not easily led. This is definitely not the sort of population that our new socialist state wants to have. It is all about control.
Dr. D - I heard Rush on the radio expressing the same thoughts. It's hard to disagree. What else makes sense?
Are we to believe that Obama, et al are so incompetent as their every project fails? That they are working towards a larger goal with the enslavement of the American people to the government. This is why the wealthy and independent must be taxed, forced to participate in nationalized health care and such. To punish them for daring not to willfully submit themselves to government control.
Sometime around 1870, an English gentleman was touring the American West. Meeting a cowboy, he asked:
"And where is your master, my man?"
To which the cowboy replied:
"Son of a bitch ain't been born yet."
I think those now in charge of our government are much closer to the gentleman's world view than to that of the cowboy.
All of the above have excellent points. And yes, this is what happens when the government gets into the business of picking winners and losers in the private sector. Even if you're in a line of business that is a "winner" at the moment, no one knows when the winds of political fashion will shift again (just look at the ride the fuel ethanol industry has been on for the past few years). So these businesses aren't hiring either. People are starting to ask where the promised "green" jobs are -- they don't exist, and as long as the government continues to rig markets, they never will.
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