Creating Jobs; Yet One More Fantasy:
Good Morning America; how are you? You’ll be better after a healthy dose of the King of Simple News.
As I was driving down to my shop yesterday, I tuned my radio to a debate on job creation. President Obama just had a little summit with some of his people and instructed them to get hiring fired-up and running like Danica Patrick.
Obama said it’s time for banks to start lending and companies to start hiring (I had no idea that this sort of activity was on a time schedule). He faulted American companies for raising productivity with fewer workers. In other words, our President may have a current address of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but his permanent address is 103 Tooth Fairy Lane, Fantasyland, U.S.A.
If the dumber one is regarding basic global capitalism, the further they live down Tooth Fairy Lane, our President lives in the last house.
The fact that productivity is the only thing that keeps Americans in the same ball park with the rest of our so called “world community,” apparently represents yet one more subject not taught at Harvard. But then, Mr. Obama has never run a business that wasn’t supported by tax dollars, so perhaps we can excuse the delusion. Not.
In the end, whatever hallucination that “Obama and the Fab-535” suffer from; is pretty much irrelevant.
As far as I know, I’m the only person who points out that real jobs can’t be created. It’s a misnomer. You can’t go down to Wal-Mart and buy a box that says, “Jobs, add water and get the heck back.” It doesn’t work that way. That being said, the government did add 8,000 jobs last month, just like they do every month. So then I hear you say, “That proves jobs really can be created.” Remember, I said real jobs.
So if jobs can’t be created, where do they come from? In a sane society, jobs materialize to fill real needs. Need a shirt, a pair of pants, some shoes? Jobs materialize to make those items for us. Need some food, water, natural gas? Same scenario. Need an investment banker who makes $100 Million a year or a CEO who makes $200 Million? I didn’t think so.
Of course, I did say in a sane society, real jobs materialize to fill real needs. However, since we live in America rather than a sane society, that conclusion would prove to be false. (There are no sane societies because humans are mad as hatters).
Back to the shoes and blouses and things that we need; do they create jobs? Sure they do…in China. No one in America can sit around and make shirts and blouses; they would cost $200 each due to our standard of living and strict government regulations.
To digress for just a moment, there is this thing called balance. If you weigh 125 pounds and you grasp the end of a rope that goes up through a pulley on the 4th floor and your partner then attaches a piano to the other end of the rope and pushes it off the fourth floor while shouting, “Hang on,” …”hang-on” as you may, you’re going to the second floor at warp speed at which time you will meet the piano coming down.
Should you manage to weather the collision while still hanging on, you will continue at terminal velocity to the fourth floor. When the piano hits the sidewalk, it will break apart and come off the rope reversing the former balance problem that had propelled you upward, and you will proceed back to the side walk unhampered by a counterbalance (often referred to as gravity). At this point you would land in the debris that was formerly a working piano.
Your condition at this juncture could best be described as “the American Middle Class worker,” terribly battered and barely alive. So balance then is an important item in our lives.
To further digress and make a point, I was working for RCA Alaska Communications years ago when one of my co-workers, Ron Odell, said, “They’ve settled our union contract agreement and I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we just got a $5.00 per hour raise. The bad news is that we are making so much money now that the company can’t afford to have us do anything.”
Everyone got a roaring laugh out of Ron’s joke, but was it a joke? Can Americans no longer afford to make the things that we need? Does the imbalance between wages and real goods represent the piano and the 125 pound person?
If so, how then is the president going to create jobs? What sort of jobs could be created that would employ the millions of laid off workers and the millions of new workers produced by immigration and positive birth replacement rates?
I leave you with this, “Viable jobs cannot be created by the whims of mortal man to support the fantasy of an exponential growth economy. Real jobs materialize to fill real needs and are limited by resource constraints.” ― Mike Folkerth
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Mike,
Several years ago our County Board decided the old Court House was too small and antiquated for the 21st century. So they proceeded to borrow 34 million for a new “Justice Center”, while keeping the old court house for extra office space. One of my old farmer neighbors said, “Just wait, they’ll fill up both the new building and the old building with make work positions.” Well, it took about 5 years but they are now adding on to the old court house for urgently needed government office space. All these new positions that make life even more difficult for the people who actually produce something.
You can create jobs, but they are bogus as you so aptly stated.
Our high standard of living has priced Americans out of the job market. Why pay an American $50,000 to do a job that someone in India, China, or somewhere else, will do for $12,000?
Even if we could work for that wage, modern technology can produce all of the goods and services we need at substantially less than full employment.
It seems that most us are becoming superfluous in the job market; however, we are still needed as consumers. I guess since businesses won’t hire us; because they can’t afford our salaries, government will need to continue paying us for doing nothing. By doing this, we can continue to to buy things and keep the economy afloat.
Is this what people call Pretzel logic, because it is so twisted? Or am I just missing something?
I am doing some research this weekend that might tie together all the fragments of “insane” policies by our government. There really may be method behind their madness.
So far it is too much info to post as a comment, but I will try to digest it and do some condensing so it can be shared soon.
Hotrod,
I’m about to rerun my Spirit of St. Louis article again to point out just how much unemployment is credited to government.
Thanks for the short story on your courthouse scam, I love to read actual events.
Michael Hodges provided information demonstrating that since 1946, State and local government employee’s have enjoyed per-capita growth of 12.7 Million as compared to population growth!
Greg,
You said, “Even if we could work for that wage, modern technology can produce all of the goods and services we need at substantially less than full employment.”
Ah yes, the gory details of overpopulation and technological unemployment. That leaves us buying things we don’t need with money that we don’t have using resources that are running out. Oh joy.
Country Lady,
You are more than welcome to e-mail your work and I’ll post it as an article on the site.
In my opinion, our government’s madness was derived from past successes of increasing population BEFORE we hit zenith for that possibility. Our leadership doesn’t understand zenith which to them means, “Have I reached my maximum wealth from stealing from those I represent?”
Great piece Mike. So what’s the solution? Get used to a lower financial standard of living is all I can come up with.
Kathy,
Not long ago I wrote a piece that talked about selecting a career that represented value to the public at large. In other words, doing something truly beneficial.
Since the whole shebang is only possible with cheap energy, I see our economy as becoming more local as the cost of energy rises. Therefore, providing a valuable service locally could ease the impact of ones decline.
I do believe that we must get used to lower purchasing power as wages stagnate and inflation picks up speed. But then, that’s not all bad. Live simple, live well.
“Our high standard of living has priced Americans out of the job market. Why pay an American $50,000 to do a job that someone in India, China, or somewhere else, will do for $12,000?”
Our high standard of living PLUS the desire of corporations to maximize their profits by retaining their lucrative American market while shedding relatively expensive American workers is what has priced us out of the job market.
Yes, it’s twisted logic and once it reaches a saturation level, it’ll slow to a halt. For example, many of the former American companies that offshored have hollowed out to the point that they are little more than a brand name with a sales force. This is the fate of most of our former American electronics manufacturing companies.
For more than a decade RCA TVs have been made by the Chinese company TCL. Thompson sold TCL the rights to the name after they were through with it. GE, who originally bought and canibalized RCA because they wanted NBC is about to sell NBC to Comcast. You might as well buy an LG, Visio or some other Chinese TV brand. Jack Welsh has become a corporate icon, writing books and teaching courses on how to gut companies for profit with the result that GE’s shenanigans have been replicated across the economy with similar outcomes.
Yes, working people will have to get by with less and less while these modern day robber barons count their loot. It’s not all bad but it’s mostly bad.
Bobcat,
What you’ve said is a mouthful and a half including, “Yes, it’s twisted logic and once it reaches a saturation level, it’ll slow to a halt.”
That it will Bobcat, that it will. As will the whole premise of the entire world growing their economies year after year.
You can see it, I can see it and many who comment on this site can see it, but if you knew how few people actually comprehend what you have written above, it would stagger your imagination.
When we have half of our nation fully embracing the Obama direction and the other half absolutely giddy over the possibility of republicans regaining office in 2010; yes I am staggered and shocked and amazed; but mostly disapointed. Human nature has done this sort of thing thoughout history however and after studying how the human mind really works over the past few years, it was enevitable. -bb
Billyb,
Certainly, as you have stated, some sort of catastrophic failure was inevitable. That’s just the way we are.