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Link. "Job Creators." Ya. Wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn?
I certainly would agree that just because someone is rich, doesn't automatically mean they create jobs.
However, the job creators I know tend to be smart, creative, driven, talented and entrepreneurial and because of those traits, they usually become rich in the process.
My father would fall into that category. He grew up on a low-middle class farm, with BARELY a high school education and he employs 300 people. He's created a lot of jobs and pays his people very well by industry standards.
It takes both. It takes consumers that have some money to spend, and it also takes some hard-charging business owners that push people and innovate in order to profit.
That's why the US has done so well, IMO. We have had a fairly balanced, 2-party system that has kept a fine balance between limiting government and providing a safety net for the masses, which allows them opportunity to advance.
The speaker also fails to make the jump between personal spending and investment spending. Rich people who have 5,000 times the median net worth, obviously don't spend 5,000 x on personal spending, but they invest in stocks, bonds and cash which provides the financing for true job creation.
So the question becomes, what is the right level of taxation for income, capital gains, dividends, property, etc???? What is the right level of wealth redistribution for maximum economic efficiency in the US????
Those are questions that people on both sides of the argument fail to attack, IMO.
It's not an all or none argument that so many partisans want to make it. There has to be a balance, so what is the optimal balance point?
No, we're worlds apart. Wealth never lets go of its privileged status voluntarily, and government's job is to insure that the great majority who must work to barely get by don't get screwed over. But government is owned now more then ever by Wealth, bent on protecting its status and sense that it is entitled, set apart, more deserving than everyone else. How else can you explain that Money which is put to work generating more money is taxed at a lower rate than the LABOR people must exert to earn WAGES? Government ought to be providing for the Common Good, rather than serving to insulate wealth FROM it.
("...but they invest in stocks, bonds and cash which provides the financing for true job creation." ) No, that's not what creates jobs. It creates bigger piles of money for those who already have money. Jobs get "created" by default as a last resort, when Business MUST hire more people, due to demand. How to create more demand? How about a LIVING wage for workers? And a health care plan which is truly universal, not the pre-Obamacare disaster, nor the Obamacare plan which makes us captives of the insurance companies. Sooner or later, medical care becomes a MAJOR expense for people.
Reply to @MaxBialystock: Hard to figure out whether you're channeling
Henry Ford ("There is one rule for the industrialist ... Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible"), or
Ronald Regan (who spoke about the 1986 Act that established the same tax rate for cap gains as for ordinary income as "a sweeping victory for fairness").
Yes I am reading MFO even on my vacation. Sitting in our hotel room in Toronto. Really liking this city--very walkable. Every time I hear some guest on CNBC publically say "job creators" I have to surmise that word never ever crosses their lips as they make presentations to their boards? So one wonders why they use the word "job creator" in public? Could the public declaration really be a way to sell politicians and the public for subsidies (not what they are called) usually it means they pass the costs of sewers, roads, and schools to people who are not getting subsidies or people who get subsidies but are living hand to mouth. Passing the costs of society to others is a subsidy. So every time I hear the words "job creators" I hear I want a subsidy. Which is fine as long as voters can evaluate the subsidies but of course they can't.
Reply to @Hogan: With you on Toronto... great city. If you get a chance take a short ferry trip out to the nearby islands too. Also, just riding the surface public transit is a great way to see the different neighborhoods, just like here in SF. We had the stiffist cup of espresso in our entire lives at a small cafe in the Italian section there. Have a great time!
Been through Toronto, saw the Jays vs. Yanks there a few years ago. Canada is just plain great. Friendly, wonderful people all over that great country. Funny: We were at the top of the CN Tower, and the first thing wifey said was: "Oh, look. There's our car." LOL.
Your assessment is correct, too. "Job Creators" is a fiction. It's a ploy, a claim on privileged position. In fact, it directly reminds me of the logic that the original Robber Barons used in the Gilded Age.
Reply to @Old_Joe: I think we are going to take the ferry over to the islands today and maybe go to the top of CN Tower. Then we are heading over to Ottawa to look around and we have tickets for Cirque Du Soleil Totem.
Reply to @Hogan: I also love Toronto. Haven't been there in a few years, but at one time my wife and I would take a weekend trip once a year. Loved Young Street and their China Town is pretty good too.
If you ever had the time, our new favorite east coast Canada place is a place called Niagara On The Lake. Not to be confused with Niagara Falls. It's probably about 15 miles north of the falls. It's a quaint, small village that caters to tourism, a bed and breakfast atmosphere.
Reply to @Hogan: If you do get to Niagara-on-the-Lake and if you like English Tea, the Prince of Wales Hotel does it really well. After that you can walkout the hotel door and take a horse drawn carriage ride though the village. Pretty good Winery there too. Great Ice-Wine.
You probably know the Maid of the Mist is on the American side, but if you want to view the falls, the Canadian side of the Falls is much much nicer.
Reply to @MikeM: we are going on some kind of tour. I have a friend who lives there and he set us up. I just threw out the name Maid of the Mist I did hear the Canadian side is nicer though.
Reply to @Hogan: Ottawa ... don't miss the Canadian National Museum & the Parliament building, right across the river from each other. The WW-I memorial in one of the upstairs towers of Parliament is a real tear-inducer.
Reply to @Hogan: Niagara on the Lake is a sweet place, too. Remember buying a historical book on The War of 1812. Gazebo by the little beach is a fav. spot for weddings.
This whole area is real very nice. We have visited the area, too, a few times; over the past 30 years. I don't recall traveling anywhere and finding so many homesteads planted with flowers of all types. Of special value for us was being able to speak the Ontarian English dialect. I suspect our being about an hour from the border and exposure to CBC TV has let the sounding slip into our own midwestern dialect. The last time we were in Oregon, we were asked, from what area of Ontario did we reside.
Kingston, south of Ottawa, and the Thousand Islands area is also a most wonderful adventure. We were able to tour this area once outside of the full summer season and had only a few other folks on a tour boat with us. Learned much about the varied history of the area and lots of great stories about the most amazing homes built upon some of the islands. And yes, 1000 Islands salad dressing had its birth from this area.
Check some of these images for island houses. Amazing !
Click on the third group down; the dark brown house with the white door. No lawn mower required, eh??? Other images of this same house are within this page. One must suspect that many 1,000's of photos have been taken of this house over the years.
Reply to @MaxBialystock: Come out west sometime too, Max. BC is some of the most amazing country on the continent, and Vancouver and Victoria are terrific cities.
Reply to @AndyJ: Gotcha covered. It used to be that I would love to talk about where I'd been. I'm a bit reticent, now. Once, a nice woman, otherwise a friend, said to me: "Is there anywhere you HAVEN'T been?" I paused and asked her, "is that a BAD thing?" I've seen every State except N.D. and I've not seen the vast middle of Canada. I come from Massachusetts and am back here again now. So I've seen Quebec, NS, Metro Toronto in ON..... Calgary area (AB, of course) and through the Rockies to Radium Hot Springs and Golden, Kimberley, Cranbrook in BC. I LOVE the Radium Hot Springs and Ainsworth Hot Springs. Fairmont Hot Springs, not so much. I'm very familiar with Kelowna and the Okanagan. At one point, it looked like I was in Canada to stay. Then I met a woman. And along the way I went up to Rogers Pass and Revelstoke. Vernon. Sicamous and Shuswap Lake. Kamloops.Nelson, Castlegar. But the views along the Coquihalla Highway west of Hope, on the way to Vancouver, are breathtakingly beautiful.
I found Vancouver very pretty and civilized for such a big metro area. Tried my hand at a paying proposition in Nanaimo which did not work out. And the capital: Victoria. Lovely. Charming..... THANKS, AndyJ, for the memories. When I get a chance, I'll go back out, flying either to Spokane or Calgary to see a classmate who is now a dual USA/Canada citizen, still working. He's in Kimberley now, again.
Comments
However, the job creators I know tend to be smart, creative, driven, talented and entrepreneurial and because of those traits, they usually become rich in the process.
My father would fall into that category. He grew up on a low-middle class farm, with BARELY a high school education and he employs 300 people. He's created a lot of jobs and pays his people very well by industry standards.
It takes both. It takes consumers that have some money to spend, and it also takes some hard-charging business owners that push people and innovate in order to profit.
That's why the US has done so well, IMO. We have had a fairly balanced, 2-party system that has kept a fine balance between limiting government and providing a safety net for the masses, which allows them opportunity to advance.
So the question becomes, what is the right level of taxation for income, capital gains, dividends, property, etc???? What is the right level of wealth redistribution for maximum economic efficiency in the US????
Those are questions that people on both sides of the argument fail to attack, IMO.
It's not an all or none argument that so many partisans want to make it. There has to be a balance, so what is the optimal balance point?
("...but they invest in stocks, bonds and cash which provides the financing for true job creation." ) No, that's not what creates jobs. It creates bigger piles of money for those who already have money. Jobs get "created" by default as a last resort, when Business MUST hire more people, due to demand. How to create more demand? How about a LIVING wage for workers? And a health care plan which is truly universal, not the pre-Obamacare disaster, nor the Obamacare plan which makes us captives of the insurance companies. Sooner or later, medical care becomes a MAJOR expense for people.
Henry Ford ("There is one rule for the industrialist ... Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible"), or
Ronald Regan (who spoke about the 1986 Act that established the same tax rate for cap gains as for ordinary income as "a sweeping victory for fairness").
I'm channeling Eugene Debs: "Riches are the savings of many in the hands of one."
Your assessment is correct, too. "Job Creators" is a fiction. It's a ploy, a claim on privileged position. In fact, it directly reminds me of the logic that the original Robber Barons used in the Gilded Age.
Eugene Debs. Political candidate, labor organizer, educator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Debs
If you ever had the time, our new favorite east coast Canada place is a place called Niagara On The Lake. Not to be confused with Niagara Falls. It's probably about 15 miles north of the falls. It's a quaint, small village that caters to tourism, a bed and breakfast atmosphere.
You probably know the Maid of the Mist is on the American side, but if you want to view the falls, the Canadian side of the Falls is much much nicer.
Kingston, south of Ottawa, and the Thousand Islands area is also a most wonderful adventure. We were able to tour this area once outside of the full summer season and had only a few other folks on a tour boat with us. Learned much about the varied history of the area and lots of great stories about the most amazing homes built upon some of the islands.
And yes, 1000 Islands salad dressing had its birth from this area.
Check some of these images for island houses. Amazing !
Click on the third group down; the dark brown house with the white door. No lawn mower required, eh??? Other images of this same house are within this page. One must suspect that many 1,000's of photos have been taken of this house over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Highway_5
I found Vancouver very pretty and civilized for such a big metro area. Tried my hand at a paying proposition in Nanaimo which did not work out. And the capital: Victoria. Lovely. Charming..... THANKS, AndyJ, for the memories. When I get a chance, I'll go back out, flying either to Spokane or Calgary to see a classmate who is now a dual USA/Canada citizen, still working. He's in Kimberley now, again.