Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
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According to figures released last week, presently there are approximately 13.9 million unemployed Americans. We have heard from the punditry that President Obama will succeed or fail based on whether more Americans find work or don’t. The president’s hope of a second term may be in jeopardy because of the unemployment crisis.
Is that fair? Do presidents really create jobs?
Yes, they do, if you are talking about federally funded jobs programs or adding more employees directly to the federal payroll. The problem with that is the government needs surplus and revenue to pay for those types of things, and not everyone wants to join the military.
The surplus Clinton left Bush was demolished and turned into a gaping deficit thanks to a massive giveaway of the surplus, two wars waged on borrowed money, tax cuts and medicare reform.
Revenue comes from taxes imposed on people working within the arena of the free market. The cure to our employment and economic woes is for the private sector to hire more people and thereby increase revenue to pay for the deficit.
Most of our jobs have been lost to cheaper overseas labor. What used to be “American” companies are now global companies. Their mission is to employ the most productive workers for the smallest wages. Unless Americans are willing to settle for wages on par to those earned by Chinese and Indian workers–a paltry percentage of what we think of as a living wage–those jobs aren’t coming back.
What about small business in America (the back bone of our economy, I’ve heard)? Assuming a small business employs about a hundred people, America needs approximately 30,000 fully capitalized entrepreneurs with winning business plans to hire approximately 3 million workers and be able to pay them more than minimum wage. From President Obama’s point of view, it would be really cool if that happened well in advance of November 2012.
An unprecedented explosion in viable small businesses, coupled with sensible cuts in spending at the federal level, and raising taxes might keep us from being deposed as the number one economic power in the world, and secure Obama a relatively easy win in 2012.
I’m not holding my breath.
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I hadn’t thought about “tornado day.” That makes sense. In Joplin alone you would have to figure a big percentage of that town was put out of business. I really try to stay on the light side of life, and I believe things will eventually work out. I think what we are really going through are growing pains that come with moving from an industrial based society to an information based society. Even the law is undergoing a dramatic shift. We’ll still always need electricians and plumbers though.
I truly believe that its the one thing most of the pundits do forget about. We have a population of 330 million people. They all have to live and work somewhere. That means that we will always need carpenters, electricians, plumbers, architects, brick masons, etc. I don’t care how many PhD’s like me they turn out those people will still be needed and here shortly they are going to be in short supply in places like Tuscaloosa and Joplin.
Collin, please don’t hold your breath. We would miss you. Actually, the unemployment problem is partially an under employed problem and an unreported employed problem. I was watching one of CNN’s analytical looks at why the job grow slowed so much last month and I was wondering which planet those folks were on. I am joking of course, but their immediate focus was on college graduates and what were they going to do about their loans. I am not going back into the education rant, but geez, there are a lot of people, at least in the south that never go to college.
I was also wondering, and perhaps you might know, if the drop in jobs in May took into account what we here in Alabama call “Tornado Day”. In Tuscaloosa alone more than 1000 business were taken out. That is just one city and doesn’t include the other 80 tornadoes that hit the state that day. That same day tornadoes ripped thru Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. Everyone whose job was lost because of the tornadoes is eligible to file for unemployment. Most all of them would have been filed in May and most will still be unemployed because a lot of cities are still cleaning up the mess just like we are. Once they get the rubble cleared out and FEMA actually starts handing out checks there will be a lot of jobs in the construction area plus those jobs that come back when the business come back. I think most of them will.