Obama's Job Fetish: Beware any politician who promises to create new jobs - Reason Magazine
Despite all the facile comparisons between the current economic situation and the conditions that preceded the Great Depression, the most recent figures show GDP continuing to grow, with unemployment at a historically modest 6.1 percent. But if, as widely expected, Barack Obama faces a recession when he takes office in January, many Americans will expect him to deliver on his promise to "create jobs."
They probably will be disappointed, because Obama seems to view job creation not only as something the government does with taxpayers' money but as an end in itself. That's a recipe for wasteful spending that will divert resources from more productive uses and ultimately result in lower employment than would otherwise occur.
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4 comments:
History does not support this statement
Yes it does.
See how easy this is. Just say it's true and it is. Just say it's false and it is.
What a great way to debate :)
First, GDP isn't "the economy." It's simply productive output. Slaves can be productive, but that isn't a good way to run the economy.
And unemployment figures are a joke. Some time ago I read an analysis of American unemployment in which the economist used the same measure used in Europe and American unemployment was somewhere around 13% (to be fair I believe I read this during the Clinton years). Check out the DoL website to get an idea of how crazy our calculations of unemployment are.
But we can use today as an example. The government has slashed taxes, especially for the wealthy, and that wealth has never trickled down and our economy is a shambles by any measure.
I'll even do a Clinton critique to give an example that won't be clouded with an angry response (surely you won't mind if I criticize Clinton). The Clintonites bragged about their record low employment rates. Yay! Unemployment was down 60% at its best during Clinton's second term. Great news, right? I didn't think so. Poverty was only down 15%...which is good, but when you combine the stats you realize that there were an awful lot of working people who were still poor.
Bush's policies have only made the situation worse. His tax cuts, as evaluated by the White House Budget Office revealed that the economy would have recovered faster if he had done nothing at all. Instead we experienced the slowest recover ever. And that "recovery" has culminated in a complete shattering of the economy at the banking level.
The economy must be propped from below. Jobs must be created so people can make money and then spend money. Cutting taxes for the wealthy does not create jobs and you don't have to look to far backward to see that that is true. Without a stable job base you cannot have a stable economy.
That being said, I don't see much in Obama's plan that will generate jobs except at the government level...which is OK, but not optimum. There's nothing in the McCain position that comes anywhere close.
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