So, is Obama getting decent advise on the economy?

Over at Forbes, Richard A. Epstein (ames Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, The University of Chicago, The Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, and a visiting professor at New York University Law School) has the economic policies of Obama pegged – and not for success either.  In this piece, he takes on Christine Romer’s latest column in the WSJ "Putting Americans Back to Work" (emphasis mine) :

High on its agenda was an investigation of public-private partnerships that could, at best, only usher in yet another round of economic gimmicks. No credible economist could think that "direct incentives of homeowners to retrofit their homes to improve energy efficiency" could place a dent in the ranks of the 15.4 million unemployed. Far more likely is a replay of the older story: subsidies for these programs sop up wealth and thus kill sensible job opportunities elsewhere.

Instead of her presidential genuflection, Romer should have given this blunt advice to the president:

You can only improve labor markets by freeing them up. Scrap the talk about goofy ad hoc subsidies, and tell the president, for the first time in his life, to think hard about deregulation. Roll back the three recent minimum-wage increases that have blunted job creation for low-skilled workers in a stagnant labor market. Announce he will veto any effort by Congress to pass the Employer Free Choice Act, whose uncertain threat of compulsory unionization has prompted many businesses to shelve any plans for expansion. Abandon the monstrous health care bills winding through Congress, whose panoply of taxes, subsidies and regulations are job killers of the first magnitude. Put a halt on legislation for carbon caps and taxes until the science gets sorted out. Don’t let the EPA make a hasty endangerment finding on carbon dioxide.

Deregulation costs nothing to administer, increases jobs and adds to the tax base. It is only an added benefit that sound economics reduces presidential power.

A lesson that our NH Democrat leaders need to learn as well.  They, and Obama, keep crying that employers are not hiring – why the heck should they?  These twits (the Democrats, that is) seem to want to force employers into being proxies for social service agencies.  They just don’t seem to understand that companies do not exist to just hand out jobs or benefits or anything else.  

Look, let’s be blunt – employer employ employees for one reason – create profit. When it becomes more costly to hire those resources – either through direct costs of wages (think unions and govenrment), mandated benefits (think government), regulations (think government),  and taxes (think government), they will NOT hire additional people that may well become "cost centers" instead of "profit centers".

Look at what I just wrote – in each area, the word "government" appears as a negative.  In this age, another area to add is instability (think government). Owners and managers of businesses hate instability – from personal experience I KNOW how hard it is to plan when one sees that the "rules of the road" are changing underneath one’s feet. 

We have taxes changing (or the threat of such) almost daily at the national level or here in NH.  We have state mandates and national mandates coming up over the hill in the area of healthcare – who would hire that "next person" if it runs up costs that may well be non-linear?  With the EPA now ruling that CO2 is a pollutant that has to be regulated (which is not even the most potent of the Green House Gases!), changes are coming that will highly affect the cost of materials and energy needed for businesses. 

So, they sit.  And will continue to sit.  The only growth in jobs is in the Public Sector which is no answer at all (those two Stimulus efforts have worked just so well so far, eh?) as we can only borrow so much until the well runs dry and without constant priming from taxes from the private sector (and that well is drying up as the pump is broken), those jobs will soon be at risk as well.

At some point, Obama and the NH Dems are going to have to admit their policies are wrong – their out would be to follow the policies of another Democrat in history – JFK (shhhh – we just won’t tell them that it has also worked for Republicans multiple times as well)

What Tigerhawk said about  national level (Dept of Labor Solis just announced ANOTHER 90 rules and regulations to be applied against companies):

Just when you think "they can’t keep making it harder," they do

Applies here in NH – they just keep making it harder and harder here in NH.  Say they want one thing (more job, please), do another (regs to make it more expensive to do the former)…..sheesh…..