Creating Jobs in the Volunteer State: What Are Businesses Doing?

[alp227]

Run time: 09:18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8zgNbfb3U   Posted on YouTube: December 03, 2011 By YouTube Member: PBSNewsHour Views on YouTube: 162   Posted on DU: December 04, 2011 By DU Member: alp227 Views on DU: 1009

 
Republicans have been saying that businesses aren't hiring because of uncertainty about regulation, the cost of health insurance and the cost of borrowing money. As part of his reporting on Making Sen$e of financial news, Paul Solman traveled to Tennessee to see if companies are creating more paying jobs in the Volunteer State. (Transcript)

Summary:
- Owner of a sign company complains that new regulations including health care reform and certification for forklift operators make him uncertain whether he can hire any more workers:

PAUL SOLMAN: Mandates? You're a sign company. What kind of mandates are you facing?

BOBBY JOSLIN: Well, two years ago, three years ago, we had to have all our tow motor people certified to operate a tow motor.

PAUL SOLMAN: A tow -- a what?

BOBBY JOSLIN: A forklift.

PAUL SOLMAN: Oh, OK.

BOBBY JOSLIN: And that cost the company $3,600. Now we're having to dispose of all our lightbulbs. We're in the sign business. We create a lot of volume of fluorescent tubes. So we just got through spending $8,500 on a lightbulb crusher.

PAUL SOLMAN: And then there's the new health care law.

BOBBY JOSLIN: For instance, the Obamacare, when we bring on a new employee, we don't know what that employee truly is going to cost us in 2014. And we're not in the practice of hiring people and then laying them off.

Of course Joslin is repeating Republican talking points but concedes with Solman that demand is another factor:

PAUL SOLMAN: Is it too much to suggest that, if you knew that the Republicans were going to take over the White House and the Senate, you would be more reassured and therefore more likely to hire?

BOBBY JOSLIN: Absolutely, because the policy of the Republican Party is less government in our lives. We can create jobs when the government stays off of our back. It's that simple.

PAUL SOLMAN: Or is it that simple? Joslin told us business is down 35 percent over the past three years.

So, then, lack of demand is the other reason you're not hiring, right?

BOBBY JOSLIN: Well, absolutely. Sales drive everything. Sales drives us to hire people, or they force us to make cutbacks.

Then Solman interviewed Vanderbilt University economist Peter Rousseau who said: "What's happened to the consumer? Their house value has fallen by 35 percent or more since the -- since the recession. They are faced with a mountain of consumer debt, which they're trying to pay down at this point. And so, of course, this is all going to translate into a reluctance to engage in nonessential purchases." Also the owner of an electric contracting firm said that a lack of requested work is keeping his business down. A brewer explains that the recession didn't affect sales of his beer, and the owner of a baseball bat company said: "You're not going to stall your business out waiting to see what the politicians in Washington do. You do everything within your power to keep the demand high to generate business."

Solman also interviewed Arthur Laffer, the Reagan protege who founded supply side theory, who criticized the uncertainty theory: "Uncertainty is not the problem. The problem is the prospects for lower returns in the future. That's the problem. And when you look at this economy, you know, it's a reasonable problem. It really is." An economics expert with an opposing view, David Cay Johnston (who's done fantastic journalism exposing tax evasion by the rich): "Non-financial companies are sitting on over $3 trillion of cash, the latest IRS data shows. Companies are not investing that money because there's no demand. It's not because they're concerned that tax rates may go up or regulations may change. They need to have people and businesses with money to spend in order to invest."

[izquierdista]

1. Worthless fucker

Bobby needs to have a sign saying "Capitalist Roader" hung around his neck, trotted through town on a sedan chair, and dumped into a pig sty to shovel shit.*






*not all aspects of the Cultural Revolution were bad....

[DeSwiss]

2. Yep. - K&R n/t