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The government appears to be the only viable job creator when wages are down.
no one in their right mind would ever made such comments in prior years/decades even when we had recessions. it certainly shows how misinformed/uneducated in business, economics we have become.
and to think your using a PC and Internet connection with your limited discretionary income to make that argument. did you displace anyone when you bought a pc and
started posting messages.
Tenpoundbass
2013 Mar 6, 6:00am
The Government's job, is to be the monitor of how businesses effect other businesses and impact local economies as well as environments.
So if a town has a healthy economy of shops, stores and other hard good outlets, then it should be the government's task to assess how a Wall Mart will effect that town and their economy. Not just the Federal government but city and state as well. Just because it puts a few hundred people to work, it's not worth the loss of thousands of jobs, when a big retailer puts those shops out of business.
Now you could say, Bullshit, they are provide cheaper goods. Well they do, only until there is no competition. After they have killed off local competition they are then free to raise their prices and cut corners on quality.
Same with impact of speculation on commodities, this is where the government can be beneficial on creating jobs. By monitoring those impacts and changing them accordingly.
Also when agencies like EPA become the lapdog of large corporation, that lobby for oppressive rules and regulations. Then they them selves manage to get exempt from most of them. While small companies will never be able to compete, due to the economic pressures and hardships those measures create.
In most cases, the word "STUDY" is used way too loosely and is wielded like an assault weapon as the undisputed truth.
To paraphrase...
It's not so much the Government's job to create jobs, as much as it is to protect them.
rooemoore
2013 Mar 6, 6:14am
Workers are being replaced by software and robots at a pace that rapidly increasing. So in your scenario, the problem is not that the jobs are just being transferred between restaurants, it is that the the new restaurant is more successful because it needs fewer employees to serve the same amount of customers.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/25/3253729/hello-my-name-is-ipad-and-ill.html
So the restaurant with less payroll can spend more on better food, chefs and atmosphere. That's good. The bad part is pretty obvious to anyone who thinks.
no one in their right mind would ever made such comments in prior years/decades even when we had recessions. it certainly shows how misinformed/uneducated in business, economics we have become.
and to think your using a PC and Internet connection with your limited discretionary income to make that argument. did you displace anyone when you bought a pc and
started posting messages.
I have discretionary income to spend on PC and internet connections, but then I don't pay for postage, pens, pencils, paper, calendars, notebooks, personal organizers, camera film, dvds, fewer books, magazines....ect.
I'm sure computers, smartphones and the internet have drove plenty out of business.
But either way, it's a straw man argument. The personal computer and internet is a once in a lifetime innovation, right up there with the automobile and television. Of course it created new markets that might not have necessarily cannibalized others.
But where is the next job creating innovation going to come from?
What will most likely happen from here moving forward... Is a overall change in how our society functions. Efficiency is so high right now... Do people really need to work 40-80+ hours a week? Wouldn't our society be better off if we had more time to spend with our families?
leo707
2013 Mar 6, 7:28am
Efficiency is so high right now... Do people really need to work 40-80+ hours a week?
No.
Worker efficiency was discussed a little bit in this thread:
http://patrick.net/?p=1222051
"Lazy" workers in the industrialized world are the most productive in the world.
Wouldn't our society be better off if we had more time to spend with our families?
Yes.
New Renter
2013 Mar 6, 8:07am
Do people really need to work 40-80+ hours a week?
No! Nor does everyone need to actually go to a B&M site to be productive
Wouldn't our society be better off if we had more time to spend with our families?
Depends on the family...
I hear a lot of talking points about how the government can't create jobs... small businesses create jobs.
But do small business or creation of any new businesses really create new jobs?
If i open a restaurant next door to another restaurant... And people enjoy it more than the old restaurant. The old restaurant loses customers and eventually has to layoff workers or go out of business.
Isn't there a point of job saturation without government intervention? People only have so much money to spend, so creating new products or new services for them to spend their limited cash on, in the end just puts another company out of business.
The government appears to be the only viable job creator when wages are down. Other scenarios outside of innovations that lower costs for middle-class Americans just seem to increase competition and lower all competitions profit-margins.