Sorry, Folks, Rich People Actually Don't 'Create The Jobs'

[EarthFirst]

Living wages and labor create jobs...

http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-create-jobs-2013-11

[Wellstone ruled]

1. It is you and I that create the Jobs.

Has been and will always be.

[alwaysinasnit]

2. Nick Hanauer - TED talks

Great, relatively short video. In 2014, Nick was trying to tell his fellow billionaires a few home truths; very prescient.

https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_beware_fellow_plutocrats_the_pitchforks_are_coming

[rickford66]

3. Sad that this has to be explained.

A first grader could understand this. The saying in economics "Supply and Demand" should always be said "Demand and Supply". Hard to explain to most people. They see the factory hiring, not understanding why the factory was built in the first place. I've debated highly educated engineers who can't see this.

[RandomAccess]

4. You and Lincoln

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Lincoln 12/3/1861 at Cooper Union, NYC

[yonder]

7. yes, yes and YES.

Several years ago I was trying to explain that concept to a co-worker. He kept on insisting that it is the capital/investor class who decides to plop down a business, anywhere they wanted, and the market would magically appear. Demand was created by supply according to him. Snap your fingers and the demand would materialize.

A white winger, born, raised and lived most of his life in a small rural town, he talks as if he's cosmopolitan and wise to the heady ways of the world because of what he read somewhere or heard on the AM radio. Yes, pretty much the boorish, insufferable type.

We don't speak much anymore.

He's still an idiot.

[RandomAccess]

8. Yeah, but you have to admit

The world would be a really cool place if that's the way things worked.

Supply creates demand. Yup. I can think of a LOT of things that would be really cool about.

[jmowreader]

10. Yonder, that's not an original thought

He was quoting "Say's Law," which is not only the stupidest law of economics but was proposed by possibly the most idiotic economist on the face of the earth. I like to think of it as the "Field of Dreams" school of economic theory - build it and they will come. A feller has to wonder though, if I build it and they will come, will they come if I build a restaurant serving only liver and onion sandwiches topped with melted limburger?

It gets better: According to Say, a surplus of one good can only be explained by a shortage of another. So...the fact that only 50 of the 100,000 pairs of purple Ivanka Trump pumps that were made have sold can only mean there is a shortage of some other style of shoe, and has nothing to do with the theory that the shoes aren't selling because no one likes them.

[yonder]

13. Jean-Baptiste Say, thanks. I wish I'd had a name then to put to my co-worker's kooky positiion.

It wouldn't be the first time I've tried arguing something based on gut-feeling. To me, this whole supply creates demand idea seems so damn counter-intuitive. I like your I. Trump pumps analogy above and may have to steal it someday.

[Sophia4]

5. Thank you. Excellent post!

And Democrats are losing because we don't have a strong, revitalized labor movement that offers hope to working people (and not just those working in industry).

We need to value work. That's what makes our nation strong -- hard work, and the people who do it.

Hard work is not just manual labor. Teachers, nurses, staff in retail and law offices and doctor's offices and just about everybody earning a normal salary or an hourly wage should be able to join a union.

And no state should have at-will employment. Employers should hire carefully and be obligated to pay severance pay to a laid-off or unfairly fired employee. Working people need life security. Working people have children and parents and husbands and wives, people who depend on them for financial assistance.

In this country, at this time, no working person has the security he or she needs. And that hurts our economy. People should not have to borrow money to live safe, healthy lives but in America today, the majority of people cannot count on their job even if they think they can.

And don't get me started on healthcare. Your employer or you pay for health insurance. And just when you really need it, you can't afford it because you are too sick to work or pay for it. That's crazy. Crowd-sourcing to pay for medical care is a public disgrace for our entire society. It happens far too often.

We need some big changes in this country.

[unblock]

6. This is so obvious the rich needed decades of propaganda to obscure it.

Almost everyone with a passing familiarity with business understands this.

If sales go down, everyone worries about layoffs. No one goes "hey, no worries, we'll just raise more money from investors! They just love putting money into businesses with declining sales!"

If a business or the economy is a car, the capital is the oil, the entrepreneur is the spark plug, and the consumer is the fuel.

Each part is important, but you really need a lot more fuel than oil or spark plugs and you need to constantly worry about having plenty of it available.

Moreover, the entrepreneur creates an initial job only because they're convinced that customers will pay for that job after the initial outlay, and in fact, pay him enough to make a profit.

If the entrepreneur is right, that means the consumer paid for the job entirely. The entrepreneur merely gave the employee an advance on pay.

If the entrepreneur is wrong, then yes, a job was created. Briefly, until the company goes belly-up.


In England a passenger is said to "hire" a taxi. That's exactly right. All businesses are fundamentally like this. If I buy a sofa, I'm hiring people to build a sofa and all that entails, from gathering or growing the commodities to turning them into the components to designing and manufacturing and marketing and distributing the sofa. I'm finding the whole operation, or at least my small share of it.

The ceo is only facilitating it -- and, actually, making sure it's done with as *few* jobs as possible.

[Thunderbeast]

9. Supply Side Economics is a fraud

If my business enterprise earns a dollar, I have two choices:

Choice ONE: I can distribute the earnings to myself and my investors. In that scenario, I want REALLY LOW taxes so that I keep more, and I leave it to others to pay for the necessary common infrastructure that enables my business to succeed.

Choice TWO: I invest that dollar in innovation, I add staff to fuel the growth of my enterprise, and I add capacity. Since those investments reduce my taxable earnings, I build business value. Higher taxes don't apply to those re-invested dollars in most cases.

Higher taxes, spent well by accountable governments, increase my business value by providing educated workers, efficient transportation networks, and oversight to protect my financial and legal interests.

Is it no wonder that European economies with higher taxes are building commerce around energy and manufacturing processes for the 21st Century and not the 19th?

[smirkymonkey]

11. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

12. Kicked and recommended for logic and common sense

Thanks for the thread EarthFirst