Free Markets Archives - Page 3 of 3

“Jobs created OR SAVED” – Such a meme!

September 26, 2018August 1, 2010 Skip

Saved or Created vs. Killed or Thwarted ?

Certainly, the first (Saved or Created) is what the Obama Administration has been talking up since the inauguration. Sure, one CAN figure out when a new job has been created (although the Census job hiring / firing process certainly seemed to have monkeyed with the numbers with the rumored hiring people, firing them a few days later, and then re-hiring them with a bit different job). The absolutely insane measurement of "jobs saved" is completely insane and has been debunked several times.

However, I think this post that brings up a new meme:

Jobs Killed or Thwarted

that may well give the Right a chance to fire back – especially when unemployment has continued to be well above that promised by Obama if the Porkulus was passed and that the ONLY reason why it isn’t higher is that so many workers have just simply dropped out of the workforce. And with the news that the private sector has $1.8 Trillion sitting on the sidelines, Caroline Baum writes:

When I heard last week that the White House would be announcing the number of “jobs created or saved” as a result of the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, my first reaction was embarrassment.

Imagine how Christina Romer must feel. The chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors was dressed in a cheery, salmon-colored jacket, a complement to the upbeat news she had to deliver on July 14. The $787 billion stimulus enacted in February 2009, which subsequently grew to $862 billion, increased gross domestic product by 2.7 percent to 3.4 percent relative to where it would have been, and added anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.6 million jobs compared with an ex-stimulus baseline.

“By this estimate, the Recovery Act has met the president’s goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs — two quarters earlier than anticipated,” Romer said with a straight face. (More than 2.5 million non-farm jobs have been lost since ARRA was enacted in February 2009, all of them in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

And then the post goes on to describe that the numbers come strictly from computer modeling. The money line, however, is this:

“If the administration wants to take credit for ‘jobs created or saved,’ it should also accept responsibility for ’jobs destroyed or prevented,’” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business.

A politician not taking credit for downsides? Oh, just slap me for my impertinence!

RightOnline-General Session Speaker: Phil Kerpen

September 26, 2018July 30, 2010 Skip

Phil Kerpen is the Vice President of Policy for Americans for Prosperity (sponsors of RightOnline) so it made sense for him to speak at his own conference. The main thrust of his talk was summed up by a quote from Van Jones, that if green jobs are the death of capitalism, and he has been … Read more

RightOnline-General Session Speaker: Ed Morrissey of Hot Air

September 26, 2018July 28, 2010 Skip

Amusing and horrifying at the same time! Ed’s speech brought back my remembrances of the 70’s. Sure – I gradumacated from high school, earned my first degree, and entered into the work force full time – smack dab into an economy that wasn’t as bright as my graduation speakers ("The sky is the limit for … Read more

CSP Rewind – Foreign Trade

September 26, 2018July 15, 2010 Steve MacDonald

Heartless, Callous Train Wreck Picture — Carol’s Driving….

Carol Shea Porter (CSP) continues to demonstrate her inability to grasp even the most basic concepts of governance. Back in May of 2009 she issued a press release promoting her signing on to a letter suggesting that the Panama Trade Promotion Agreement, (TPA) also called the Panama Free trade agreement (FTA), would in essence cost American Jobs. To Quote the congresswoman…

“”I don’t want to have to vote for unemployment benefits. I want to vote for jobs.””

And to quote from the body of the letter she signed on to…

“”This disconnect between the Panama FTA and the current needs to restore our economy will make any vote on this FTA difficult to justify. Indeed, it appears to be the opposite of the “change” theme Americans voted for in the last two elections.””

Unfortunately for Carol, the real disconnect is between what Big Labor Lobbying groups (her number one campaign donors) have told her change means, and the reality of the Panama TPA’s impact on trade and jobs in the US. But if Carol wants to dip her big toe in the waters of the international trade pool with blinders on, let me be the first to show you how she’s all wet.

Drop Dead Fed

September 26, 2018June 30, 2010 Steve MacDonald

In the most recent issue of National Review Gary Wolfram, Professors of Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College wrote this in regard to Mises and Hayek’s Austrian business-cycle theory.

""This theory emphasizes the role of the interest rate in bringing together the plans of producers and consumers. The interest rate is the price of loanable funds — in effect, the price of money — and, like the price of any good or service, it gives producers information about consumers’ behavior and the actions of other producers. For example, if consumers wish to save — to put their money in banks, which lend it out — they will increase the supply of loanable funds, putting downward pressure on the interest rate. Producers can then borrow that money cheaply and invest in capital goods such as machinery, factories, and housing — which they can use to create goods for consumers to buy in the future with the money they have saved. Thus do producers and consumers arrive at the equilibrium interest rate, which matches producers’ plans to invest in capital goods with consumers’ desire to save.

Starving Leeches

September 26, 2018April 7, 2010 Steve MacDonald

In every argument convenient to their agenda, liberals like to whine about ‘sustainable resources.’ They pride themselves on their promise to manage resources for the future. They brag about their compassion for the environment. But liberals are the worst resource managers the world has ever seen because they ignore the single most important resource of all, wealth. Wealth is the resource. It comes from managing people, equipment and materials to provide something people want or need. But for Paul Hodes and liberals in general, the goal is to take wealth other people have created and spend it on what Paul Hodes wants people to need, independent of any other reality than the one he and the liberals have imagined.

In the real world the marketplace is forever finding new ways to create wealth which it then uses to hire more people, buy more equipment, and purchase more materials, to fulfill real world needs. Those in the free market that fail to manage effectively are consumed by those that do, and the circle of wealth continues, absorbing the people, equipment, products and ideas that work, and discarding those that do not.

Willing participation is a critical part of this process. It is rewarded based on things like determination, critical thinking, intellectual agility, personal integrity and hard work. Any American with these traits, regardless of where they started, or where they were educated, can live reasonably well almost anywhere–in any field.

But Paul Hodes thinks that participation and decision making are best left to ‘experts’ in far away places. He believes that what happens to you is not your fault; it is merely a product of an unequal society that prevented the government experts from doing for you what they deem you incapable of doing for yourself. So success and personal behavior are not related. Failure is rewarded whether it is your own, or foisted upon you by your government. And the reward is making you more reliant on government, enshrining the failure model in exchange for your vote. And the only solution to dealing with any failure—be it yours or theirs–is to add more government which you must pay for if you are able

Creative Destruction

September 26, 2018March 18, 2010 Steve MacDonald

What was once a mainstay of the home entertainment zeitgeist is about to be altered, perhaps forever. Blockbuster has announced that it may have to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Apparently the once mighty rental giant does not fall into the too big to fail category nor does it qualify for some kind of TARP-like bailout. Of course Blockbuster backing down on a buyout of Circuit City retail stores saw the end of that national chain, so it almost seems appropriate that the management of a company that would even consider buying Circuit City might face a similar fate.

It just might be that time.

The free market has produced faster, cheaper, more reliable, and more service oriented alternatives, all competing aggressively for market share and creating significantly more jobs and opportunities than will be lost by the global giant that was once Blockbuster. And if Blockbuster can’t reconcile its problems with debt holders and is no more, there will be plenty of scavengers to pick up the pieces, to create new growth from the remains. But then that is what open markets do. They encourage people with little more than an idea and some energy to encourage the decline of lumbering goliaths for the mutual benefit of the consumer and the industry. It’s a process liberals bemoan, one that they work tirelessly to subvert, and since January 2009 have doubled down on.