What Creates and Sustains Jobs?

The politicians mutter the word “jobs” as if they understood where jobs come from and what conditions are necessary to sustain jobs.

First, without revenue to pay wages no job can exist or if created continue to exist. The question then becomes, where will the revenue come from? There are two sources of revenue for jobs. One is the direct granting of revenue by the government which funds government jobs. If there is funding available the job can continue until the funding disappears. The other source of revenue is profit. If a job is created to supply a good or service and it is sustained by paying for itself, this job is sustainable as long as it is competitive. This is the only job that can exist that doesn’t rely on confiscation and redistribution. Jobs that rely on “government funding” are not self sustaining since they must have confiscation and redistribution. Government cannot create wealth, it has nothing it doesn’t confiscate or borrow. All government created jobs are necessarily temporary. Debt and eventual inflation destroys the foundation for government funding of jobs as the private sector that supports sustainable jobs shrinks under the regulation and taxes that eventually destroys the profit motive and therefore the only source of self sustaining jobs. The CCC camps could not have been retained as permanent jobs. The demise of the Post Office and Amtrak are examples of where government “jobs” must eventually falter. The source of these two government jobs comes from the government subsidies. Neither is self sustaining based on the income they generate. This means a private sector is being taxed and the confiscation of their earnings is being channeled to the subsidy the government is supplying.

When people are voluntarily willing to pay for a good or service they pay the producer what they feel is a fair price for the goods or services if they are earning enough to afford it. Their earnings must also be voluntary to reflect true market value. For the market is based on the voluntary contracts of producers and consumers willing to charge and pay what will satisfy both parties. Enter the government with forced payments and the contracts become distorted, the market disrupted and stability disappears. This is the result of granting government the power to tax. If government had to generate revenue as all private transactions are conducted they would have to convince citizens they were providing a valuable service ( i.e. protecting individual rights). Fund raising for elections shows they could operate on this basis.

This latest emphasis on jobs by the government without an understanding ( or an evasion) of the nature, source and essence of job creation and sustainability will not energize the economy or lower unemployment. Tax cuts are the nearest articulated rational approach to sanctioning profits and therefore jobs. Of course tax cuts reduce government revenues ( until business expansion generates more tax revenue) and this phenomena has been the most successful means of sustaining a mixed economy. Now this concept has been refuted by the “progressives” because of their hatred of business and the people who prefer to deal by honest trade instead of back room bribery which is the politicians’s way.

Many of the current shenanigans were conceptualized and predicted years ago and many of the proponents know this but dismissed the warnings and pursued the totalitarian path. Our past Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced in her younger years how she had read Ayn Rand then rejected her because of a “maturity” she had attained. By her evasion she has evolved into a model of a villain from her novels.

The economy cannot thrive under the premises of the politicians of today and their lackeys in academia and the media. We can only survive on remnants of the surpluses that are gradually being dissolved by more taxes, more debt and inflation. The government is lying about the rate of inflation and the business community is swallowing the lie. If the true rate were published the outrage would be deafening. Ordinary living expenses will eventually expose this facade and the charade will be over. This is another reason jobs are disappearing. The cost of doing business is rising which requires higher prices and cutting back. Just as the candy bars shrank as costs rose so too the cost of labor shrinks the job market. Is it any wonder jobs are being sent to where the cost of labor is less?

As for whether Americans will not work for less than minimum wage I ask how volunteers can work for nothing. Somehow this “sacrifice” is okay with the politicians but reducing the minimum wage isn’t.

Jobs will be plentiful when people can make money from hiring. This means government must step aside and let people in business prosper. This means politicians must reexamine their socialist premises ( from both sides of the aisle) and recognize it is freedom, innovation, profits and capitalism that is the only answer to more jobs and a thriving economy. This is all that is necessary to turn this madness around. The alternative of listening to a rambling speech conveying whims and fallacies doesn’t cut it.