yipyipyipyipyipyipyipyip boomboomboomboomboomboom*

 Matt Bors points out the critical role of empty rhetoric in the presidential race.

"Creating jobs" is a nice topic because, not only do we have a lot of people out of work, and a lot of people working at jobs that don't quite pay their bills, but we seem to have come to an agreement that the entire subject area is a truth-free zone.

The best example is the persistent claim that "government cannot create jobs," in which "job" is apparently defined to exclusively mean "permanent employment in a high-paying manufacturing position."

Under this definition, being a soldier is not a job. Neither is teaching or fighting fires or working as a police officer. We've passed legislation ramping up security to a fever pitch, but nobody in the CIA, FBI or TSA has a job, because government can't create jobs. The  Department of Homeland Security is staffed by 216,000 people who are unemployed.

And so we argue from one face that government is too big and expensive, and, out of the other face, that government can't create jobs.

Meanwhile, I have a kind of Scylla-and-Charybdis thing going on each morning as I take the dog to the park, because I can either go through a major bridge construction zone on I-89 or through a major reconstruction and repaving project on Route 4. Yesterday, I guessed wrong and sat for 12 minutes waiting to be waved through.

And yet there was no work going on there, because it was TARP-funded and government cannot create jobs. So none of those people with the jackhammers and shovels, none of those people operating front end loaders, pavers or rollers, and none of the truck drivers were actually working. 

Not only that, but there was nobody supplying them with orange signs and traffic cones or crushed gravel or large concrete sewer pipes or manhole covers or hot asphalt or even gasoline and diesel fuel for their equipment.

After all, that would mean people would have jobs, and government can't create jobs.

But, the argument goes, those aren't permanent jobs. Ah. That is, they aren't like other construction jobs that are permanent, so that roofers and pipefitters and masons who build things in the private sector never get laid off when a building is completed, they never have to find a new project, they never draw unemployment or have to uproot their families to find a place with more construction going on.

I understand.

Here's something else I understand: "Last hired, first fired."

What that means is that, down at the quarry, when the demand for crushed stone drops because there are no road projects going on, they lay off the most recent hires.

Most of those recent hires who are sent home are not middleaged people with some savings they can draw from, whose kids are old enough to go out and flip some burgers, cut some lawns, babysit and help make ends meet, who have lengthy resumes and a few connections that might help them pick up another job.

No, the "last hired" are young people just starting out, with no savings and no experience and no prospects and with little babies at home. They will need food stamps and health care and maybe even some help with housing, and so, instead of taxpayers buying themselves an improved highway or replacing a bridge that was in danger of collapsing, they'll piss away money on keeping a family going that would have been perfectly happy to show up for work every day and help supply the crushed stone for those projects.

Because government can't create jobs and TARP was a waste of taxpayer money. 

I'm not an accountant or an economist, but I'm also not a moron or a liar. With that in mind, here's what I know:

About forty years ago, the folks at the top of the pile stopped operating businesses and started assembling stock portfolios. The iconic cartoon of the industrialist standing at a large window overlooking his factory and saying to his son "One day this will all be yours" was replaced by the two of them hunched over a spreadsheet.

Nobody wanted to create a great steel foundry or a great drug manufacturer or a great movie company or a great publishing house anymore. The people who wanted to build up a local grocery store or to see their newspaper become the lynchpin of a community were forced out by the people who wanted to create a chain of anything you could sell stock in and borrow money against -- the product didn't matter. The product was profit.

And when it turned out that the only thing keeping us from accessing overseas sweatshops was the tariff system set up to equalize production costs between First and Third World nations, we simply dismantled that old, outdated system with free trade acts that, it was carefully explained, were good for our economy.

I'm still not sure how Arlo & Janis manage to creep into this blog so often, but here we go again.

* and I guess I owe you a cure for the earworm embedded in that headline

Comments

[Dave from Philadelphia]

As usual, your commentary is so on point. It is painful to read.

I have lost faith in our country's ability to govern itself with any semblance of rationality. I understand that all political systems have varying levels of bluster and strident advocacy. It is part of the pushing and shoving leading up to serious negotiations. But at some point in time, people need to roll up their sleeves and figure out solutions. Can’t/Won’t happen with the current political environment.

As soon as someone compromises, the 24/7 media immediately decide who won and who lost and the extremes fill the airways with vitriol about how the end of the humankind as we know it is upon us. Yesterday on NPR, of all places, I heard a critic of the repeal of DADT simply repeat twice, “We now have Obama’s San Francisco military.” ??? Where can you even start to have a rational conversation?

Love the reference to a "truth-free zone." All I can do anymore is laugh at the absurdity of it all.

[f]

As Molly Ivins used to say, you can either laugh, cry, or throw up, and the latter two are bad for you. (Paraphrased, since my memory isn't perfect.)

I wish we still had Molly Ivins around. And I wish we had grownups running the country.

[Dann]

So reductio ad absurdum....we should let the government spend an unlimited amount of money and create a job for everyone?

I already know you don't believe that.

There are a couple of large points that you missed.

1. Keynes would be embarrassed at the things that are justified in his name. Even he allowed that government could only stimulate the economy when it was in a position to either draw down accumulated government savings, or when it had a plan to stop the stimulus and repay the borrowed funds. Which leads to...

2. We have a deficit problem that is caused by government overspending. We were in trouble without the stimulus. And have been for decades.

3. Tax and regulatory policy are at least as important as 'stimulus' when it comes to growing the economy. Mr. Obama and the rest of the Democratic leadership have taken a position of lambasting "the rich" and promising punitive taxes. They have pressed new and existing regulations that punish normal business activities. And they created a new, massive government healthcare program that properly connected businesses are able to opt out of.

Did the stimulus do some good? Yes.

Was it all wasted? No.

Some of it...i.e. Solyndra (sp?)...certainly was wasted. I would venture a guess that the money that went to building/rebuilding roads and highways largely was not.

The bottom line is that government does not create wealth. It consumes wealth. Wealth is created in the private sector. And with wealth comes jobs.

Continued deficit spending along with threats of higher taxes and new regulations are what is undermining our current economy. Stop those and things will turn around in short order.

Regards,
Dann

[Jym Dyer]

=v= I see great inefficiencies in that video. Three backing singers where a tape loop would do (it could be recorded overseas), and it doesn't help that they sit down in the middle of the job. That's the Magnited States of America, U.S.A. approach to getting a job, after all!

[Mike Peterson]

"The bottom line is that government does not create wealth"

Agreed. But it can create jobs that create wealth that, in turn, create jobs. If a community has good transportation, it's not just good for moving things to market but it's good for attracting companies to locate there in general.

And one reason is that people will come work for the company if they like the community, so good roads and other infrastructure improvements are part of "creating wealth."

And one job that can be created is to help doo-wop groups work out better choreography, dammit.

[solar panels]

"The bottom line is that government does not create wealth" - How about public companies? Aren't they designed to create wealth?

[double glazing]

The idea of government not being able to create jobs is absurd. As far as I know, constructing roads, being in the military, being policemen, are jobs. They're just trying to have an out if they fail.