The clock anvil and the lie that business creates jobs

[Joanne98]

Ever since David Stockman sold the ruse to Ronald Reagan, the American fish has been swallowing the lie that businesses create jobs hook, line, sinker and worm. And in the process of digesting what we've swallowed we have also swallowed the accompanying lie that cutting business taxes to the point of eliminating them altogether is the way to keep the economy spinning, and if its revolutions slow, to get it swirling once again.

It's time to shove an entire bottle of Ipecac syrup down our collective throats.

Understand this basic truth: No successful business has ever created even one job.


Demand for the product or service the business produces creates jobs. Two examples.

Let's say you awake one morning in a “Eureka” fit of blinding brilliance: The way to become a billionaire — invent the clock anvil.

So what is an anvil anyway? It's a heavy hunk of iron with a flat surface on top and a curved cone at one end, and it's used for shaping red hot steel or iron to whatever the desired shape may be. The craftsman accomplishes that task by laying the stock metal on top of the anvil and literally pounding hell out of it with a hammer.

Good enough, you say, but why would anybody want a “clock-anvil”? Perhaps one response would be, so the worker would always know what time it was. In truth, however, it's manifestly clear to all but the simplest of simpletons that no one would ever buy a clock anvil. And if no one was going to buy such a product, no business person is going to try to manufacture it, regardless how low, or even nonexistent the tax rates were. The pièce de résistance coup de grâce here is that, in the absence of a manufacturer of clock-anvils, not a single worker is going to be hired to work in a plant that doesn't exist, making something no one wants.

On the other hand, let's say that back in the 50s you awoke one morning to a similar jolting fit of blinding brilliance: The way to become a multi-billionaire was to open a chain of strip-down hamburger joints that would sell hamburgers for 10-cents, cheeseburgers for 15-cents, french fries for 12-cents, soda fountain dispensed soft drinks and milk shakes (vanilla or chocolate; the only choices on the Spartan menu) for equivalently low prices, and that every order would be taken at an outdoor window, where patrons would queue. No inside seating. No waitresses. Just a bare bones menu that featured low prices, genuine quality, cleanliness, and faster service than Americans had ever seen — or even imagined — before.

Of course: The Ray Kroc and his McDonald's phenomenon. Although his “Eureka” flash was born in California, the first McDonald's I visited was in 1960, on Grand River Ave, right on the outskirts of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Two years later a McDonald's opened on Dix Highway, one block south of Southfield Rd. in Lincoln Park, Michigan; less than a mile from my home. I recall the scrawl that ran just below the “McDonald's”: “10,000 hamburgers served.” Then it was 50,000. Before long the sum ran to 100,00 and 500,000. Today it's “Billions and billions served.”

Through the years millions and millions of young Americans worked in the chain. But not Ray Kroc, nor any of either the corporate or franchise restaurants created so much as one job. Demand for what the restaurant was producing did that. And every one of Kroc's first millions of dollars income and every job grew during the period when the top personal tax rate was around 90%!

Same thing for Henry Ford. And Horace Dodge. And Ransom Olds. And Howard Hughes. Jobs, jobs, jobs, and millions and millions and millions of dollars of personal wealth.

All that Republican slashing of tax rates have accomplished has been the further lining of the already nicely lined pockets of millionaires and multi-billionaires. And not even one additional American job has been the consequence. Which is not at all true: What has been the byproduct has been an Old Faithful predictable gush of corporate lobbyist positions, Wall Street tycoons, and CPAs, all to insure the high-flying private corporate jets remain aloft.

Regurgitate the lie. Whether large or small, businesses simply DO NOT create jobs! Demand alone is responsible. But before we can experience demand sufficient for the creation of jobs, first must come consumers with the wherewithal to purchase whatever product or service business produces.

Continued>>>
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-clock-anvil-and-the-li-by-Ed-Tubbs-091130-551.html

[FiveGoodMen]

1. K&R

[louis-t]

2. I told this to repugs in my family 13 years ago.

And I ended with "if you give all of the money to the guys at the top, they will mot create jobs if there is no demand, they will PUT THE MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS" Nowadays, if any one of them opens their mouth to say how much they admire Sarah Palin, I just bring up that they are all struggling because of what I told them 13 years ago. They all remember.

[Warpy]

3. Good for you. I keep trying to tell people that

and about all I get for my effort is a blank stare as they chew their cuds.

The bottom line is that no rich man ever hired anybody unless there were a lot of poor people with money in their pockets and looking to spend it on whatever that job would produce.

[baldguy]

4. "Supply-side" economics is a crock.

[patrice]

5. Ok! Got it. Now, Sound Bites PLEASE!

Something catchy & Educate, educate, educate . . .

Signage:
side 1: Tax Breaks =/= Jobs
side 2: Demand creates Jobs - or - Living wage creates Jobs - or - Wages create Jobs

side 1: $$$$ Is Not Trickling-down!
side 2: $$$$ Is flooding(?) flowing(?) surging(?)-up!

maybe those two ought to be on the same side

side 1: Supply side economics is a LIE.
side 2: Demand side economics is the Truth.

just brainstorming here . . .

[whyverne]

8. How about "Customers create jobs, not businessmen" n/t

[lib2DaBone]

6. 30+ years of Reaganomics and Trickle Down....

.. and American workers STILL have not figured out that they are being screwed.

Prior to 1980, approx 40% of the workforce was Union. Workers enjoyed good benefits, overtime and a LIVABLE wage.

Once Regan gained a foothold with his Republican bean-counters and Wall Street Slicks.. the wages went down, working conditions got worse and benefits vanished.

Taft-Hartley over the years has been a nail in the coffin for workers, the beginning of the end for fairness and prosperity, while Wall Street and Washington thrives. While corporate profits continued to soar (5000-6,000% on the backs of workers) our standard of living has gone down and Republicans have convinced America that the "race to the bottom" is inevitable and actually a "good thing".

With the MSM wholly owned by Wall Street and all of our CONgress firmly in their back pocket.. I see no hope for America.

The OP is correct... businesses do not create jobs.. demand creates jobs. Obama should be leading the United States toward a high-tech, high-wage economy... but instead we get Blackwater and the CIA Shadow war in Afpakistan. Very Sad.

[unblock]

7. in fact often they destroy jobs.

mcdonald's success was in greater throughput. "fast" food meant that diners who might have kept people employed at several proper restaurants can now be fed with just your staff.

[orwell]

9. And therein...

...lies the brilliance of John Maynard Keynes.

[AdHocSolver]

10. Let us not forget the other fraud: the alleged benefits of so-called "free trade".

First, there is no such thing as "free trade". NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and Most Favored Nation trading status are all corporate cartel agreements to control trade and eliminate competition so as to increase corporate profits.

The purpose of policies that allegedly promote so-called "free trade" are to enable corporations to transfer production (jobs) to areas of low wages and low taxes.

The supposed benefits to so-called "consumers" are alleged to be lower prices for goods and services.

However, when those consumers used to produce the goods that they "consume", that means that they gain "cheap" prices at the eventual loss of their jobs.

Moreover, as local alternatives to the purchase of goods disappears, the former producer corporations (now merely importers) no longer have to sell goods imported from low-wage countries at reduced prices since there is no longer competition. So they raise prices and increase profits, rather than pass the cost of production savings to consumers.

As more goods are imported, and there are fewer production jobs in the U.S., we maintain our level of consumption by going into debt. The U.S. owes hundreds of billions of dollars to our "trading" partners, since we import practically everything we buy. This practice devalues the dollar and we are experiencing "creeping" inflation. This accelerates the increase in debt, just as jobs are being lost at a record rate.

This is leading to a crash in the REAL economy as the U.S. creditors curtail lending to a "bad risk". Don't believe that the alleged stock market "rallies" mean anything. They don't. The stock market has degenerated into a Ponzi scheme played by a bunch of rich guys with other people's money, currently boosted by the "play" money they got with the recent government bailouts.

The corporatists have even scared the people against the very actions that would save the U.S. economy, reduce the debt, restore government ability to provide services, maintain the viability of Social Security and Medicare, without even raising the tax rate.

The solution is to impose import duties and quotas on manufactured goods that can be made right here in America. In other words, bring manufacturing jobs back to America. Working Americans pay income taxes. When Americans buy goods made by other Americans, that supports the U.S. economy. Giving people stimulus money won't help the U.S. economy if it all goes to buy goods produced in China. Then, the stimulus money is saving Chinese jobs, not American jobs.

Investing in "green" technology and job retraining won't help one bit so long as corporate cartels can use "free trade" policies to transfer that technology and those jobs to slave-wage countries such as China.

Import duties and quotas are the means of protecting local businesses and jobs from international corporate cartels. Every industrialized country got that way by protecting their citizens' jobs. Wealth is created by production. Consumption does NOT make you rich. Production provides income. Consumption is merely a display of wealth. If you keep buying on credit, as the U.S. is doing, eventually the people loaning you money will stop, and you will learn real fast that consumption does not make you wealthy.

[eridani]

11. Government-privided infrastructure to serve the businesses that respond to demand

--also creates jobs.