This is not particular to Trump, but he definitely is the most guilty as of right now- people who run around yelling they are a job creator. It’s bullshit.
This isn’t 1840 where you hire a bunch of unskilled people and send them out in the woods with an axe and they chop down trees. And even then, who built the fucking axe? Who surveyed the land? Financed your purchase of it? Etc.
Creating jobs in the modern economy is not a solo effort, it, to borrow a phrase, takes a village. There has to be a great deal of infrastructure in place to “create” jobs. There have to be educated and skilled workers, which we all pay for and raise. Those workers have to have a place to live. Those workers have to have places to eat. Medical care. There have to be roads and plumbing and an electrical grid. There have to be financiers to pay for capital outlays and construction. There has to be a form of government to regulate and enforce a legal structure and the market. There has to be a stable currency. And on and on and on.
And on and on an on. So while I am not shitting on entrepreneurs, it needs to be pointed out that your not exactly the lone fucking ranger when you “create” a job.
FFS.
Mary G
You mentioned Walter pictures yesterday. (runs away).
CONGRATULATIONS!
My poor Republican mother just about hit the floor when my stepfather explained to her that, like every other business owner out there, he didn’t plow his profits back into hiring more people, he invested it in stocks and real property like any sane person with money would.
She gets real quiet when the subject of jobs comes up these days.
p.a.
You is also a BIG FOOT ;-)
Roger Moore
Shorter John Cole:
You didn’t build that.
Villago Delenda Est
Bad Cole, bad. Looking at cause and effect. This will not endear you to the Rethuglican base.
It’s like you actually read The Wealth of Nations, not just bought an Adam Smith tie.
OzarkHillbilly
If they are a job creator every time they hire someone, what are they when they lay someone off?
A Job Destroyer. Fuck these masters of the universe with a cholla branch.
Chris
We all create jobs. The, let’s say, auto-manufacturing tycoon who employs thousands of workers didn’t “create” their jobs out of thin air through his innate awesomeness. The people who created those jobs are the millions of us who want cars, and so, therefore, need someone to build them for us. Without them, the businessman would have no money and would not be creating any jobs.
This is what enrages me about the worship of the 1% – it treats them as if they’re somehow the prime mover behind everything that happens in our economy, when in reality, they’re just the middleman between the clientele (“the demand”) and the workforce (“the supply”). Somehow, it’s become accepted that these middlemen have an inalienable right to extract as much money as possible from the former while passing on as little of it as possible to the latter. This is justified by the notion that it’s “their” money and that they’re the ones who “create” the jobs, when in reality, neither of these things is true.
p.a.
@Villago Delenda Est: every one knows Smith was a RINO.
Haydnseek
Can’t link, but check out Fuck Ayn Rand at Gin and Tacos. Seriously. Do it right now. It’s truly epic.
joel hanes
who built the fucking axe? Who surveyed the land?
Who built the stockades and provided the cavalry to drive the original inhabitants from the land ?
Who purchased the European-style property rights for everything west of the Mississippi from the French, and for Alaska from the Russians, and then gave all that land away to anyone who would take and “improve” it?
Who provided the courts and sheriffs and marshals and county recorders to enforce those rights in an orderly fashion?
Who subsidized the railroads, then the highways, then the interstate system ?
Who subsidized extending electrical power to rural areas ?
Who built dams and aqueducts and provides the resulting water and power to much of the US west of the 100th meridian below cost ?
burnspbesq
The good news on the job-creation front is that Crain’s created a job in Detroit for Ron Fournier. His exit from DC is imminent.
patroclus
I’m concerned about this Evan McMullen threat.
peter
@Chris: Re: the unmoved mover. It is well known that at the top of every pecking order is… the unpecked pecker.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq: The Village’s gain is Crain’s loss.
Haydnseek
Gahhhhh! Can’t edit! The Gin and Tacos Ayn Rand takedown is in the comments, rather than the body of the post. It’s great.
jonas
Who got rid of the previous inhabitants so you could move in an take it over?
joel hanes
@Haydnseek:
can’t link
but I can
check out Fuck Ayn Rand at Gin and Tacos
You mean the front-page post from 2009 ?
Here’s a link
bluefish
For real. And there also has to be the capacity to forge relationships and engender a minimum of trust. This clown has already gleefully wrecked his very own trashy brand, with both fists. Who in their right mind would trust him from here to the corner?
Trump seems to want to put over a Lord Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, vibe & affect when what the vast majority appears to see is just another carny barker. November can’t come soon enough.
burnspbesq
@patroclus:
First time I’ve ever unreservedly agreed with Instapundit.
catclub
I like Paul Waldman at Plum Line.
schrodinger's cat
Capitalism cannot exist without a stable government. Think of all the capitalist bastions in the world, past and present. This job creator stuff is total bs, just like most of the Republican propaganda.
bulletin 1147
Job creation logic:
Most jobs in the nation are created by small business,
billionaires are wealthy,
therefore, billionaires are job creators.
There seems to be a flaw somewhere, but I can’t quite work it out.
Haydnseek
@joel hanes: The front page post is very good, but a comment by someone with the nym of Fulcanelli is a masterpiece.
schrodinger's cat
Stupid Tom Friedman in his last op-ed was extolling the virtues of job creators and entrepreneurs.
schrodinger's cat
The true engine of innovation is science, which the Republicans diss at every opportunity they get. They are also at the forefront when it comes to cutting budgets to national labs and such.
wormtown
@Mary G: Yes, please sir. I have been checking the blog obsessively since I read that yesterday.
Ten Bears
Actually, cutting down trees and getting to a mill to make lumber so people can build houses and such is a highly skilled activity. You don’t send Dumpf ucks out to do it.
Anoniminous
Reading a Book Review on Amazon and ran across this gem:
Friedman’s contribution to the genre was eliminating the “gentlest hint of new information here and there” so he doesn’t lose his audience.
Joshua James
Not to mention, the only thing keeping the workers from using that ax on the dude who hired them is the laws set by the govt to protect everyone… ahem.
JPL
Hillary should figure out what her tax savings would be under a Trump plan, while mentioning, he would save more. She should also mention that under her plan, she would pay more taxes, and is willing to do so.
Villago Delenda Est
Also, too, John, you’re being disrespectful of Teh Donald’s sacrifices to create tens of thousands of jobs which are of course far more profound than losing your middle son in Iraq to a car bomb intended to kill and maim hundreds.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Also fuck self proclaimed Innovators. We used to call undefined revolutionary ideas vaporware. Now they call it disruption. Someone who tells you they would innovate if only you removed all of these pesky taxes and regulations is just pulling a thin gauze of jargon over their naked greed.
amorphous
@bulletin 1147: Ah, the old “illegals are taking all our jobs after they’ve all been shipped overseas to the places the illegals left because there were no jobs to come to the US where they remain unemployed sucking at the government teat because they don’t want to work an honest job” logic? Classic.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Can we just get a law through that anybody who talks about “job creators”–unless they’re mocking the phrase or the people who talk about being job creators–gets a knee in the balls? (I don’t know what to do about women who blather on about job creators; maybe somebody can come up with something.)
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Jeez, these Republican trolls really suck ass these days. Can’t some big time job creator get these poor losers something worthwhile to do so they don’t have to debase themselves this way?
Villago Delenda Est
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): We can start with the perpetually stupid srv.
LeonS
Also, in Trump’s case: I don’t think they count as jobs if you don’t pay the workers.
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: Job cremators, not creators.
scav
@srv: Not if they remember the vivid image of just who showed up in the village with torches, danced around the flames and crowed over the ashes.
Uncle Cosmo
@srv: Fuck off & die, shitstain.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
If only the government could afford infrastructure improvements (with money that’s available to borrow at below the rate of inflation) they could work on repairing their own bridges. Assuming they don’t prefer to just sit under there and complain about government spending.
Mnemosyne
@jonas:
Smallpox.
ETA: IOW, good luck for Europeans, bad luck for Native Americans, but somehow us white folks always attribute our strokes of good luck to hard work.
KG
@jonas:
Mostly the pigs the Spanish brought over and then lost along the way… at least that’s one of the theories.
amk
@srv: Idiot.
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, at her convention Hillary didn’t have a single person who said, “Hillary helped me start a business”!
jl
All Cole needs is to announce that the blog is paying for itself. Then announce that he is coming back to the GOP fold after a brief period confusion. Will have to do some repentance ritual, probably need to cry in public as evidence of sincerity. Then he can get some sugar daddy reactionary to fund some seminars on entrepreneurship. John Cole, political double agent, sowing chaos in enemy ranks.I think the time is ripe.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Uncle Cosmo: Seconded.
Daulnay
These people shouting “I’m a job creator” really don’t understand how free market capitalism works. Individuals don’t create the jobs, free market competition creates jobs (helped by good macroeconomic management by the central bank and government spending). What really kills jobs is when these ‘job creators’ manage to get themselves a monopolistic market position where they don’t face competition and therefore can rig the market to unethically squeeze money from suppliers, employees and customers. Or when their buddies in Congress pass a free trade agreement that lets them move production offshore to low wage/no regulation countries.
gvg
A lot of people assume certain conditions are natural and just fall out of the air, like trust in money and trust that you won’t get robbed at gun point if you go to the store. That borrowers will mostly pay off their loans, that the banks won’t steal the money or just disappear. That investing rather that hoarding is smart, that most contracts will be honored and they won’t need to be able to afford to sue for everything in life. that buildings are firetraps and food is not poisoned etc. People just have no idea all of these things are something that has to be worked at forever,
? Martin
@Ultraviolet Thunder: That’s a bit overbroad. Disruption properly refers to low-end disruption which almost inevitably means finding ways to bring lower-cost products to existing market, typically thanks to massive automation, efficiencies in distribution (Amazon), or shifting from physical to virtual execution (making your phone camera good enough to replace point-and-shoots) – and most of that is taking existing businesses and applying all of the strengths of the internet to them.
These are valid ways to innovate and bring significant benefits to consumers because they make products or services much cheaper. What people tend to get upset about is that the overwhelming fraction of the cost savings comes straight out of labor – either direct at manufacturing or through the various layers that products needed to go through to market (warehousing, distribution, showrooms, salespeople, financing – all required a lot of human labor but delivered no actual value, and in many cases now are eliminated completely)
If you look at the most successful people behind these moves, they are pretty much universally calling for the opposite of what you accuse them. Almost all of them are calling for a national minimum living wage. They all recognize that their businesses are eliminating a substantial amount of low-end labor, and that they need those lost workers to drive demand. I think they are perfectly happy with the government taking (in an appropriate way, which is nontrivial to define) taxes out of these businesses in order to provide for that. Their beef with regulation is not cost but speed. They see that time to market is not just necessary for success, but in many cases is beneficial for consumers. They aren’t necessarily demanding they can rush products to market carelessly, rather they see how old and inefficient the regulatory structure is and demand that it be modernized so it is efficient and sensible.
There is almost universal agreement that the main impediment to autonomous vehicles is the regulatory structure – not technology or market demand.
M. Bouffant
Stop believing & repeating bullshit like this. We don’t need those parasites. Money can be printed anywhere, by anyone.
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
And where does the failure to invest in reliable infrastructure fall into that “almost universal agreement that the main impediment” ?
Keith G
I have been have a Twitter-based back and forth with a guy who is generously dumping on HRC about her pledge add 200,000 jobs in Upstate New York. Her efforts fell flat, as is noted here by Jerry Markon at the WP:
I noted that since we are no longer in the age of LBJ, no US Senator can deliver on much of a jobs pledge at all. And the though it is unfortunate, it is up to the voters to understand how our economy works even if it seems that our leaders often do not. He whinged that HRC did not keep her promise, so I agreed with a twist.
Hillary is not a political saint, but her actions as an aggressive politician are well within the norms of our other leaders and flat out a good deal better than many
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: And now the blog’s Tom Friedman has, also too!
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin:
Well done! That’s pretty Friedmanesque. Its still missing a taxicab reference, though.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Haydnseek:
Which goddamn post? I looked at the top two, “NPF” and “Scooby Doo Mystery,” and didn’t see any comment from Fulcanelli.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@srv: Troll hits gold. Actually true. And blame can assuredly be laid at the feet of Obama, as it can be for virtually every serving politician of the last 20 years. We’ve been told for years now there are job shortages in STEM fields. There are not. There never were. The problem was that there was a lack of people willing to work STEM jobs for McDonald’s wages; the easy fix was to open the borders and flood the country with H1B visaholders, and tell all the high school kids they needed to get STEM right fucking now.
Unemployment rate among US-born STEM employees is now well over 30%. De facto retirement from the field is age 50, because in this field (yeah, I’m one) you’ll never get hired anywhere after age 50. You cost too much. Wages are falling through the floor.
Mission gettin’ accomplished.
FlipYrWhig
Republicans think it’s Downton Abbey all the way down. A rich person hires some poor unfortunates to scrub pots or black boots in the lord’s manor. Of course the whole point of Downton Abbey is coming to grips with how this isn’t the way it works anymore, not in the unsettled new world that World War I made. IOW, it hasn’t worked that way for 100 years. Yet conservative economic firmware has yet to be updated accordingly.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Mind meld in comment #57, though you were the faster in typing a response.
Haydnseek
@Daulnay: You do realize that there’s no such thing as the “free market.” Vast armies of lobbyists spend fucktillions of dollars per year to make sure that the exact opposite of anything resembling a “free market” will continue to be the default setting of the U.S. economy.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@srv:
Real good, twatwaffle. We all know the Amish aren’t going to vote for Clinton. Most of them don’t vote at all.
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: The British Empire was funding the aristocratic lifestyles of the Downton Abbey types, that’s why they went poof after WWII. The decline started right after WWI.
Pogonip
Walter is keeping somebody somewhere employed cranking out dog food, so how about an update on him? (Walter, not the guy on the dog-food-canning line, though I’m sure he’s a swell guy fully deserving of Cole’s attention as well.)
schrodinger's cat
@Haydnseek: Calling what economists term, perfect competition, free market was a stroke of marketing genius. I wonder who came up with it.
? Martin
The main argument against the ‘job creators’ is that there is now $12T in capital tied up in negative earning bonds. That’s $12T that is doing less than nothing – it’s actually losing value by design, rather than the owners of that capital put it to some better use. That’s $12T that should be confiscated through taxation and used for literally any other thing. As bad a stimulus plan as handing out money is, it’d still be a better use of that money than earning negative returns.
But it means that this wealth accumulation has been a failure because the so-called ‘job creators’ when armed with money, don’t know what the fuck to do with it. They don’t have enough good ideas of where to invest, of what businesses to build, of who to hire. We went from a system where they had so much money they had to be creative about how to loan it to people to buy homes they couldn’t afford to a system where they now can’t figure out what to do with it. So fine, they can’t be responsible with that money – so government should take it and build infrastructure and distribute it to the people that were displaced by these economic changes.
schrodinger's cat
@bluefish: I wouldn’t trust Trump to cat sit my kittehs over a weekend.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: When inflation is low, why lend money and take risk when it can sit and not lose its value.
Haydnseek
@Steeplejack (tablet): Search the Fuck Ayn Rand post. It’s even prominent on Google. The Fulcanelli comment isn’t too far down. It’s worth it.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: Look, that’s the view from the industry that actually innovates. That’s a minority of businesses, though. The majority are mature businesses looking to milk old business models for another few decades before they get upended by the upstarts. Their view on regulation is completely different – they are trying to squeeze every penny. So don’t accuse me of failing to see that when I try and correct you painting with too broad of a brush.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s unkind to cholla. Plant abuse! Call the People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetation!
shortribs
As a consumer, fairly sure I helped create those jobs too.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: Which industry would that be?
Uncle Cosmo
@Steeplejack (tablet): It’s about 30 down from there. Worth using the “find” function of your browser–he nails it.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: Money which is idle is money being wasted and government has a vested interest in keeping that from being idle. In fact, that is a main function of the Federal Reserve as employment is part of their mandate.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (tablet): Invariably I find that references to these kind of epic take downs turns out not worth any energy to locate.
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
Go on, pull the other leg!
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: I am aware of the twin mandates of the Federal Reserve but the concerns of the ones that Keynes calls rentiers have been deemed more important since the Reagan years. So full employment has taken a backseat to keeping inflation low.
bluefish
@schrodinger’s cat: Not even an hour! He brings to mind The Big Lebowski, and I don’t mean The Dude. Gives off the same malevolent whiff of delusional hubris and deep-seated, resentful insecurity. Kittehs would’ve meowed at the wrong moment, take your pick, and been hurled over the closest backyard fence to figure it out and fend for themselves. Some serious anger issues going on there that serve as catnip.
Mnemosyne
@Anoniminous:
I will take slight exception to that — the Giant Evil Corporation just made a billion dollars at the box office by using talking animals to teach people about intersectionality and racism. You gotta do what works.
Haydnseek
@Corner Stone: Not this time. Your loss.
OldDave
@Haydnseek:
If you liked that, you’ll love this somewhat more succinct version.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
A couple of things:
1) On the job creation thing, demand is what creates jobs. When money is moving around with sufficient velocity, it can chase a great deal of goods and services. When it gets dumped into real estate, it isn’t moving, and when most of it gets shipped out of the community for chain retail (leaving only undercompensated retail employees and the lowest rung of management to spend locally), it isn’t moving.
2) During the housing crisis, the collateralized mortgages weren’t actually worthless – they were simply difficult to objectively value, which the nitwits that run the financial system deemed to be worthless due listening to the retards who run the ratings agencies. By my anecdotal estimation of the behavior of delinquent or defauted buyers, 70% plus of the underlying mortgage obligations were going to perform close to or at contractual compliance because people hate to lose their homes and hate to move, and will go to herculean efforts to keep a house payment going.
Mike G
Creating jobs is not some munificent act of charity the magical-thinking authoritarian-worshiper Republicans claim it to be, it’s an economic decision based on a projection that their employment will generate more revenue than cost for the business owner.
It’s no more deserving of gushing praise than I am when I buy a sandwich because I’m hungry.
scav
srv et al should soon be Drumpeting when they can find individual people on individual blocks that are on-board and super-secret election-killing demographics all in their individuality. Soccer / Security Moms are dead! The Old Order Whitetop Buggy Rhubarb with no Strawberry Pie Mom vote is (theoretically) secured and invincible!
Corner Stone
@Haydnseek: I’ve been google searching slashfic of Trump and some Brony convention survivors on a lifeboat that docks into Peter Thiel’s floating SeaCountry.
What I’m saying is, meh.
Brent
Actually John, I would argue that the whole conceptualization of “job creators” makes very little sense in context. For the most part, and with very few exceptions, it is economic demand that creates jobs – not individual entrepreneurs. There are a few individuals who create new economic activity and thus more jobs but, thats a very short list. Most businesspeople are really just taking advantage of a demand curve that would exist with or without them and which will absolutely be exploited by someone else if not them.
To put it another way, its consumers that, by and large, create jobs not some rugged individualist with an SBA loan. That is not to imply that there is something wrong with being an entrepreneur but I have always hated this implied notion that business owners are somehow doing us (society) a favor by selling us the stuff we need. Rather, its a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Society has created a set of rules and a predictable commerce environment that allows them to profit on the collective needs and desires of its citizenry. The existence of working people and the money they earn from jobs is a necessary condition for them to earn that profit. Its not a gift from them to us.
jl
A lot of commies (aka, losers) here seem to have complaints about the Scrooge McDuck global economy. Why resist the glories of 21st century capitalism? Behold!
Scrooge McDuck Vault
http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/scrooge-mcduck-swimming-in-money.jpg
Haydnseek
@OldDave: I do love that quote, and use it frequently. It’s so good that sometimes it’s a bit difficult to give it proper attribution, but somehow I manage. Thanks!
Corner Stone
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
People invest way too much of themselves in their “home” and will make the most irrational of decisions until forced to quit.
hovercraft
@Steeplejack (tablet): @Corner Stone:
I think this is what he’s talking about:
jl
@jl:
pic is from a story about a real Scrooge McDuck vault for sail in Switzerland a little over two years ago. In Basal, alas, not Zurich.
A Scrooge McDuck-style money vault is up for sale in Switzerland
http://www.geek.com/news/a-scrooge-mcduck-style-money-vault-is-up-for-sale-in-switzerland-1583335/
Produce a pic of Steve and Rosie romping around in one these suckers, Cole. Then I will take your whining seriously!
Haydnseek
@Corner Stone: Just google Fuck Ayn Rand and click on Gin and Tacos when you see it. Scroll down to the Fulcanelli comment.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Corner Stone:
I found it, and it’s seven fucking years old. And it’s pretty much like every other “Here’s what’s wrong with Ayn Rand” post ever. I got sucked in because the breathless urgency made me think it was something new.
I’m too crabby for the blogosphere today.
JustRuss
@? Martin:
I’d like to believe that’s true, but really? Got any links? Yes, some billionaires have called for upping minimum wage. But “almost all of them”?
Uh, no. Tesla’s Autopilot, while cool, has significant issues. The tech is getting there, but we have a long way to go.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/21/tesla-autopilot-goes-wrong-videos
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
One of the things I’ve thought about is that people used to argue against liberal plans for wealth redistribution by claiming that it was better in the long term to grow the economy as fast as possible and redistribute the wealth when there was more of it to go around. Ignoring the obvious questions about timing- how do we decide it’s finally time when presumably the same argument will always apply- it seems obvious to me that this is no longer true. It was always based on the presumption that the limit on economic growth was availability of capital, so it was more productive to turn money over to capitalists who would invest it than workers who would spend it.
With trillions of dollars of capital sitting unproductively, though, it’s now obvious that the limit on growth is demand rather than capital. IOW, the question about when we should redistribute has an obvious answer: now. Getting more money into the hands of consumers would both benefit them by giving them more money and by increasing demand and speeding up growth. It’s absolutely time to start taxing the hell out of the ultra-rich and using the money on things that will get it into the hands of the poor.
Haydnseek
@hovercraft: This is it, and thanks a million for posting it.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@jl:
That is not a vault, it is a money bin, as every student of the McDuck canon should know.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: There’s quite a few businesses in every industry. Tesla is an example in transportation and SpaceX in their industry. Most of the newer tech companies, but also some established businesses in other industries that do make substantial investments in new markets or in redefining existing markets.
Large multinationals are almost never examples because they are too heavily invested in holding onto existing markets. They can have some smaller division which breaks that trend, but they’ll be a small group. Typically you’re looking at some mid-sized companies and most startups. That makes them a much longer list, but in aggregate with less market clout. Amazon is a good example in a number of aspects. They are automating fullfillment and distribution. They are moving toward vertical integration in order to provide better consumer service – and the cost of these efforts in jobs is offset by environmental benefits and other consumer benefits. Consider that environmentalism is largely an exercise in increasing efficiency – carve out the need to build a brick and mortar store (and the environmental cost of that), the extra shipping step to the store, your trip there to buy the thing, etc. The best environmental outcome is to send the product directly from the factory to your door.
You can see it fairly directly now with credit card transactions. You’ve had a number of tech companies lobbying hard for updated credit card regulation, which in most cases would be heavier regulation. Their assertion is that lax regulation has allowed the financial services sector to neglect consumer protection in favor of protection of existing markets. These companies are saying, no, by expanding the market you can demand vastly stronger consumer protection because we can bring new types of products to market that the incumbents can’t. Now, this is a story of Apple and Google vs Walmart and Home Depot, with Visa/Mastercard largely supporting the former, but tepidly because they don’t want to see credit card usage drop, banks strongly aligned with the former because they were carrying the cost of weak protection, and almost all retailers aligned with the latter because time of transaction is key for them as well as the cost of building infrastructure that they’ve long neglected. It’s a bit unusual to see such large companies on both sides, but this is the kind of situation where you see it.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: No argument.
jl
To be serious, as opposed to my japes above, KThug has a good column on this topic today.
Link to extract at Economist’s View blog below
Paul Krugman: Time to Borrow
Paul Krugman
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/08/paul-krugman-time-to-borrow.html
Major Major Major Major
Um, did nobody notice that the article is saying that people with SCIENCE degrees are having trouble on the job front, not the rest of the STEM folks?
Of course they are. Science has never been a very good career path.
Haydnseek
@Steeplejack (tablet): Hey, no harm no foul. I just like to revisit things now and then that are pertinent to the discussion. Crabby is okay. I’m about a week into a gout flare-up, so I’m not exactly Mr. sunshine lately either.
catclub
@Corner Stone: Yep. Jingle mail was much less prevalent than any economic model would have predicted.
Mike in DC
HillDawg stepping on Trump’s neck in her pre-buttal speech in FL.
catclub
@jl: Why do I suspect he has written the same thing for the past 8 or so years, starting in January 2009?
And been called shrill every time.
Roger Moore
@jl:
There’s a classic Scrooge McDuck comic that explores the current economy very well. Scrooge discovers that his vault is so full that he can’t put his latest haul into it, and it would cost more that it’s worth to expand it. Donald and the nephews convince him that the only thing left to do is to (gasp!) spend the money, so they take him on a road trip. They make him do stupidly extravagant things like staying in fancy hotels, buying a new ultra-luxury car when the old one gets scratched, etc., which he does only under protest. After a long and stressful trip, he has finally spent the money and arrives back home, only to be told that some eccentric billionaire has been spending lavishly at his hotels, buying luxury cars from his factories, etc. and he has even more money that won’t fit in his vault.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mike in DC:
I’ve been assured by male pundits on twitter that she’s a terrible candidate who is a terrible campaigner, so that can’t be true.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: Exactly. And what is also proving to be true is that capital has less utility value than it used to. That’s one of the great innovations that Amazon has brought to the tech industry. You don’t need millions of dollars to build out data capacity – you can rent it from Amazon proportionate to your demand just for today, and wind it back (literally) tomorrow if that demand goes away. That’s part of why demand for housing has shifted from San Jose to San Francisco – you used to need infrastructure, square footage, and now you don’t. And it’s allowed a host of business models to develop that previously were impossible simply because you no longer need to raise as much capital to get it going.
But that’s also proving to be true in a lot of traditional industries where online sales can replace construction of physical stores, where manufacturing can be leased to smooth out seasonality or to rapidly ramp production because the factories already exist. At the end of the day, it just takes less money up front to run our economy and you can see that globally by the amount of cash just sitting around doing nothing.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
So much for the conservative stance that women should stay home with their kids, eh? Now stay at home moms are just a bunch of slackers who should be dumping their kids at the nearest daycare and taking a fast-food job.
Steeplejack
@Haydnseek:
I can understand people not providing a hyperlink, because they don’t know how to do it or because it’s a hassle on a phone or tablet, but how hard is it to give some context to a hot recommendation so that people have a chance of actually finding it? Even quotation marks around “Fuck Ayn Rand” would have sort of indicated that that was the post title. Bonus for: “It’s an oldie but a goodie, so you’ll have to search or scroll down for it.”
Major Major Major Major
@srv: Sorting out identity theft takes longer than chipcard.
r€nato
Love this post. I heartily encourage all of you to get into arguments with the following libertarian assholes. Their lies need to be countered.
* “taxation is theft” idiots. Ask them how we should pay for the most basic functions of government (defense, courts, roads, fire and police, cops) without “theft”. This question simply cannot be answered honestly while maintaining the premise that all taxation is theft. Theft is wrong, even if for “noble” purposes. “Most taxation is theft” is not viable either; at this point the person arguing this is simply expressing policy preferences, not an unassailable moral position.
* Ayn Rand crotchsniffers. They really do not like being reminded she fell back on Social Security and Medicaid at the end of her pathetic, misspent life. When they assert she was merely getting back what she paid in, remind them a) that considering she was being treated for cancer, it’s far more likely she took out more than she paid in; b) where was her personal responsibility in bringing on her cancer through a lifetime of heavy smoking, and not taking out sufficient health insurance to cover the near-inevitable consequences of that? and c) those social welfare programs that she resorted to at the end of her pathetic, misspent life would not have existed at all in her ideal world; she would have been left to die in agony on the street.
* “I don’t owe society a goddamn thing” sociopaths. (“you sure fucking do; if it bothers you this much to be asked to pay the taxes that are the price of civilization, then fucking leave. I hear Zimbabwe or Somalia would suit you fine.”)
Monala
@srv:
There are 192 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 64, according to 2015 US Census estimates. 102 million is 53% of that number. Someone is seriously trying to make the argument that more than half of American adults are out of work? At the height of the Depression, I think the number was 1 in 5 were unemployed. Come on! Think of everyone you know (who is of working age). Are more than half of them unemployed?
? Martin
@srv:
Exactly. Which is why those companies arguing to expand the market were doing so. ApplePay (and Google’s equivalent) are faster than chipcard, and more secure, and work with online transactions.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: It actually doesn’t if you are willing to offload some of the task to the consumer. Thats how the phone-based payment systems help with this. They make the phone a secure component of the transaction stack – something that a card doesn’t have the capacity to do.
? Martin
@Monala: Every retired person is ‘working age’. Every disabled person is ‘working age’. Every person in college is ‘working age’. Every stay-at-home mom is ‘working age’.
Keith G
Just finished watching a live feed of HRC’s speech in St Pete. She is having fun and that sense of fun is making her a better candidate – forming a virtuous cycle. She seems to be applying lessons learned from Michele Obama. A lot of her comments came with a softer in-your-living-room tone. And some were even softer than that.
She looks like a winner.
p.a.
@srv: I know I’m late to the party on this, but it’s some pretty goddamn good performance art right there.
As go the Amish so go… the Cathars, I guess.
philadelphialawyer
Most so called job creators are not even innovators. They are wage destroyers.
They take a thing that used to be done in house, like payroll, and tailorize it (ie “Paychex”). The service is actually worse than it was before, because it is off site, as the person off site doesn’t know shit about the company, and handles stuff from lots of companies, and so the workers have a much harder time in resolving problems with them, etc, etc. Buuuuuut, it is cheaper. Which is all management cares about. And so, woopeee, a lot of shit jobs are “created” and nobody talks about the better jobs that are lost.
New small businesses, most of them, simply replace the jobs they destroy. A guy who opens a new pizza place, even if he succeeds, is only employing about as many people who lost their jobs from the old pizza place which went out of business because he was successful.
Or, worse yet, the new small businessman works a gazillion hours a week, gets lauded for it, and does the jobs of three people. In which case there aren’t even any nominal new jobs, and the only change is loss of jobs.
Even innovation is not really about job creation. Ford employed a lot of people. But a lot of people who had been blacksmiths, horse farm owners, harness makers, etc, etc lost their job.
Innovation is good because it allows society as a whole to do things more efficiently. Or just plain better. Or because it allows it to do things that it couldn’t do at all before. NOT because it “creates jobs.”
And, again, even that only applies to innovators. Not labor tailorizers. And certainly not shitheads like Trump who ran non innovative, and actually exploitative and destructive, businesses like “gaming” institutions. Before he became a mere celebrity licencor who doesn’t even do that.
So, please, really, just STFU Trump.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: That series of sentences has nothing to do with what I wrote.
Mr. Mack
@srv: That article seems to be about Australian university grads, does it not?
Calouste
50 Senior* GOP National Security Officials post a letter to the New York Times denouncing Trump, and it’s a broadside:
*) Senior as in both George W. Bush’s Directors of Homeland Security, Ambassadors, Deputy/Assistant Secretaries of State, etc.
Schlemazel
@schrodinger’s cat:
If only I could believe you when you say Tom Friedman’s last column.
That would be a blessing
Miss Bianca
@Calouste: funny how people who *worked* for Bush Sr and Jr seem to recognize a clear and present danger in the Trump candidacy when they see it, but members of their owen family – ie, Jeb Jr – don’t.
Poopyman
@Calouste: Thirteen more weeks of the “Everyone Hates Trump Show”? I say there’s no way he’s going to last until November 8. I’ll go on record as predicting he’ll say “fuck it” (possibly literally, on-camera) by the end of August.
Then what? well, that’ll be interesting to find out.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Corner Stone:
I’ve had people who were completely underwater on mortgages and paying about 30% in excess of what rent would be on a comparable property insist on doing reaffirmation agreements in bankruptcies.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
But your article is claiming the opposite and saying that every person between the ages of 18 and 64 should be employed full-time, and counted as “unemployed” if they’re not. No exceptions for college students or disability or the need to raise small children.
According to that article, if every married woman quit her job tomorrow, the unemployment numbers would be apocalyptic and our entire economy would collapse. They think that the problem is that not enough women with small children are in the workforce.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@srv:
Somehow, I think that the real Joe Biden is of the same mindset as Onion Joe Biden on matters such as these, and has zero fucks to give.
Corner Stone
@Miss Bianca:
George P thinks he is the next President Bush. He most likely feels that 2024 is a no go if he doesn’t toe the R party line now.
Dadadadadadada
@Miss Bianca: And how all those same people seemed to not recognize the clear and present danger that was George W. Bush. I mean, better late than never, and their votes count so let’s get them on our side, but let’s not pretend that these are people that have worthwhile views.
Monala
@? Martin: Even if you count all those people, you don’t get to 53% unemployed. US Census reports that 63.5% of Americans ages 16+ are in the workforce (note that’s 16+, not 16-64, so it includes adults of retirement age). That’s closer to 160 million than 102 million.
But I guess what I’m trying to do is get srv to think – it unemployment was actually that high, then basically every other person s/he knows would be out of work. I seriously doubt that’s the case.
Trollhattan
O/T I know it’s been eight long years since the specter of the vile and proudly stupid Palin was dangled before the voters, but in her Alaska half-term she still managed to do real and lasting damage. This makes me seethe with white-hot anger. “States’ rights” my ass; theft from us all is more accurate.
Corner Stone
As much as I enjoy a Tom Hanks performance, and revere Capt Sully. There’s no way in hell I will ever spend another penny on any Clint Eastwood film.
Emma
@Monala: My dear, he’s a troll. BY definition, he has given up thinking seriously about anything.
Amir Khalid
@Miss Bianca:
There’s an actual Jeb Jr — John Ellis Bush Jr, George Prescott Bush’s baby brother.
hovercraft
@Calouste:
SE Cup says that it doesn’t really matter because they are part of the establishment, who screwed everything up in the first place.
BruceFromOhio
@peter: This is hilarious coming from a commenter with the nym peter.
Mike in NC
@Monala:
Never worked before, so why believe that would change?
Brachiator
@Calouste:
But, but, everyone knows it’s Hillary Clinton who is the untrustworthy warmonger.
Sadly, I keep hearing the most ardent Trump supporters insist that this is only signs of the Establishment trying to oppose Trump. Even those who wince at some of his recent gaffes insist that he is the “strong outsider” that America needs. It’s really tough to buck that when you have people who believe that “insiders” will fight tooth and nail to keep their cushy government jobs.
BruceFromOhio
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Tell it! I could innovate to profits, profits, profits, if i could just brutally exploit my workers and tell OSHA and the EPA to fuck right the hell off. I’d be creating jobs all day long, what with the injuries and deaths from unsafe working conditions, low wages, and lack of benefits. Stop all the whinging and get back to work, knaves, The Innovator Hath Spaken Justly.
Major Major Major Major
@BruceFromOhio: Peter Thiel’s RNC speech just boiled down to “can’t we all set aside petty squabbles over social issues and agree that I, Peter Thiel, should be wealthier?” At least he’s more or less honest.
Bobby_D
Cole, u gonna make SupplySide BabyJesus weep.
And Art “I’m laughing at you rubes, not with you” Laffer too!
Mike E
@BruceFromOhio: Or pogonip commenting on pooping, also ;-)
john fremont
@Chris: This! To quote a defunct blog I used to read, “Businesses hire when they’re swamped with demand. “
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: Me too. I’ve never really been much of a Clint Eastwood fan anyways so boycotting his movies will be easy.
@Trollhattan: The whole state of Alaska bares responsibility for allowing hunters to kill an entire wolf pack like that. What’s the sense of crying now? My blood pressure can’t take these kind of stories. Idiots.
CONGRATULATIONS!
My, I just read the CA Voter guide for November. It’s a damn shame that political parties can’t be thrown in jail for false advertising, because the CA GOPs “political party statement” is a work of pure fiction, having nothing to do with any Republican party I’ve ever heard of or dealt with.
And FWIW, I think I’ve had enough of our initiative process. We have SEVENTEEN to vote for on this go-round, and there’s a few in there that are point-blank ludicrous. Do read the actual text of the laws, they are in there. Confusing and long and pointless they may seem. They are not. Some of the proposed laws are not anything like what they are described as, or argued as.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: I have never been a great fan of his. I must have seen 3 of his movies, Where Eagles Dare, Unforgiven and Bridges of Madison County.. Kinda overrated if you ask me.
Monala
@schrodinger’s cat: I used to like finding gaffes in his films – and there were always gaffes. For example, in Absolute Power, in which Eastwood directs and plays a cat burglar who, during a burglary, witnesses the killing of a woman by Secret Service agents. The woman is having an affair with the President.
Since the SS know there was a witness but can’t find him, they start to threaten his daughter. A detective played by Ed Harris who is investigating the murder and who likes the daughter, accompanies her home for her protection. As soon as she is in the house, she quadruple locks her door. Detective hits on her, she says, no thanks, so he turns to leave. Without unlocking any of the quadruple locks, he opens the door and walks out…
gVOR08
Actually, no matter how much help they get from infrastructure and government, entrepreneurs and established business people only divvy up jobs. DEMAND creates jobs.
bemused
I remember reading that Trump bragged he would create 1200 jobs at his Scotland golf course but only about 200 jobs happened. (I don’t remember if he has two golf courses in Scotland but I believe he just meant one.) Then I thought about the climate in Scotland and I would call it seasonal. It would not exactly be pleasant to play golf in the winter or spring and fall for that matter, with the winds whipping off the ocean. Maybe he thought his golf course would be so awesome for it’s other amenities or something but Trump is a guy who writes checks he can’t cash…for everything.
schrodinger's cat
@Monala: And his acting mainly consists of mumbling and squinting. He was a handsome man though when he was younger.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: Good Lord, you’d think I’d be able to keep all the Bush spawn straight, wouldn’t you? Being that one branch of my family can nod acquaintances with them at the country club in Kennebunkport. //
Ella in New Mexico
Yes, but Hilary Clinton’s failure to single-handedly bring about The New Deal. 2 in upstate New York during the second worse recession in American History?
A shameful lie and failure. Proof she’s unfit to lead. And probably just took bribes and donations to the Clinton Foundation to enrich her pocket….
It’s getting to the point where the “media’ literally believes that since Republicans and their plans and their voters and their candidates are such FUCKING JOKES that the only ones they can take seriously are the Democrats.
So we’re the only ones they hold to any–no, the the very purist– standards. Always. Because, “They’re the smarter grownups in the room–they should know better!”
Major Major Major Major
This is totally OT, but I thought it was funny. From The Onion’s timeline of feminism:
debit
@Corner Stone: That makes two of us.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Wait, that was as early as 1972? //
also o/t, but I’m betting that any Star Wars fans out there will get a kick out of this image….
ThresherK
@schrodinger’s cat: I would like to sing the praises of A Perfect World.
Not much of a role for Eastwood, but he really sets the table for Costner and that young child.
Mnemosyne
@Ella in New Mexico:
Wouldn’t you love to have someone add up the number of people who’ve lost their jobs in all of Trump’s various failed business ventures? I bet it’s in the low thousands, at least.
dmsilev
Want to read something pathetic? Of course you do. Check out this NYT Op-Ed by a former Bush speechwriter with The Solution to The Trump Problem:
I’m not sure what the most hilarious aspect of this approach is. The intrinsic absurdity of Trump listening to Pence telling him to get out is pretty impressive. I think, though, the hilarity really peaks at the very end:
schrodinger's cat
@ThresherK: Not seen it.
schrodinger's cat
@dmsilev: They all live in La-La land.
Major Major Major Major
So the new shocking wingnut WTF today is that somebody follows Hillary around with a diazepam pen.
Jeffro
I’m thinking of sending a bunch of unskilled workers into the forest with axes that they made themselves…
Trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
In case she needs to quickly sign a treaty with Diazepamistan?
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
That’s hilarious, that is. Trump won’t quit his run now, he’s too proud to do such a thing. The certain outcome of Pence asking him to step aside is Pence’s political career coming to a dead stop. Pence had to give up running for reelection as governor to become Trump’s running mate, and urging Trump to quit will make his own position in the campaign completely untenable
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
TOTALLY. No there there.
Matt McIrvin
@? Martin: Aren’t those mostly government bonds? So governments are using the money anyway. (The difference being that it’s counted as debt rather than as revenue.)
Steeplejack (phone)
@ThresherK:
Great little movie, too often overlooked.
J R in WV
@Haydnseek:
You invented the time machine – that’s from Tuesday, March 10th, 2009… but still great!
J R in WV
@? Martin:
What about the consumer completely unwilling to allow a computer to risk my life? After spending 1980-2008 in software development, I really hate trusting a computer to run my dishwasher, my stove, etc.
Driving me in a car at 65 mph, on WV road, or anywhere USA roads? No Way! Never!
Ruckus
@? Martin:
For some items.
I owned what was basically a bicycle store. It was aimed at the triathlon end of the business but it was a bicycle store. In the bicycle business you need a brick and mortar store because you need fitting, clothing and most important, you need repairs which requires knowledge, skill and some specialty tools that you can’t get at Home Depot, or even from your SnapOn dealer. There are other products that some can purchase online and use without issue but many can not. Computers for example. How about your smartphone? There is a reason that Apple stores are high profit places that are almost always busy. The product is ridiculously easy to set up and use but many don’t have the simple skills, especially when something goes wrong. They probably could develop them but often don’t want to, they just want it to work. Amazon and other online stores have a place for some but they are not the end all be all of retail.
Ruckus
@Monala:
My grandfather worked every day of the depression and did very well doing it. He had a garage in Hollywood and repaired high end cars, which is what movie stars drove. My mother and her siblings, all 5 of them got jobs in less than a month when their father died in the middle of the depression. This may have been unusual but the figures that I’ve seen said there was 30% unemployment during the depression. Don’t know how accurate that is, considering how much harder it was to find and track people then but even if it was off by half, that’s still less than 50% unemployment.
Mike G
@Calouste:
GW Bush showed no interest in educating himself. He entered office ignorant and self-indulgent, and basically exercised his whims and prejudices as a lazy parochial-American frat boy, “going with mah gut” and never acknowledging that he had to learn a damn thing to do his job well, because he rarely seemed to care about doing it well. The presidency was just another do-nothing seat-warmer gig like his daddy had set up for him before, where he played the genial frontman enjoying the swag and perks while his family’s cronies hauled loot out the back door.
Aleta
There have to be good teachers who teach kids how to think by themselves, and how to develop ideas and solve problems and analyze plans. And good school admniniistrators and boards who are allowed to support those kinds of independent teachers. And social/health workers who help parents make a secure environment in which a child can mature.