The economist in me doesn’t see how it matters. You’re ascribing different effects to motive where it makes no difference.
It doesn’t matter if the government wanted to build the interstates to employ people first and buiild roads second, or whether they wanted to build roads first and employ people second; either way, the federal government built roads, and the economy grew and people were employed as a result. (I’d suggest that indirect employment - e.g. jobs arising because of the existence of such a critical infrastructure - was likely greater than the jobs involved in building the roads.)
Either way, the government decided to purchase something that private industry would not have purchased, and people were employed as a result in a manner that even conservative economists will cheerfully agree was an efficient use of money.
I do not disagree, the question I had is when government does actions to “create jobs” vs. provide services or other functions they tend to have limited success.
I am not a “conservative” so I can not even pretend to know their viewpoint.
But when Rick Perry claims credit for job creation in Texas or Obama claims his job package will add $# of jobs they are most likely not correct.
“Goverment” is a bit subject but in general you would probably agree that they are “overhead”
I am in IT, to the company I am overhead. I can provide better services for the company or reduce expenditures but those actions will have little effect on how well our sales go.
However if I am Incompetent I can cause various issues that will limit the organizational ability to make money.
I am positing the idea that government is similar. It provides services that are critical to the needs of the country, the scope of those services is outside this argument IMHO
So outside of it’s impact as a consumer, e.g. employment due to the Interstate system. It has little power to effect employment levels in a positive way.
I have given citations showing that the claim of any increased job growth at a national level (not taken from another community like at a local level) is dubious.
The costs of those tax incentives (or cuts) reduce the funds coming into the Federal government and reduce the ability for it to act as a consumer.
So the fact that the Interstate system produced jobs is irrelevant to the idea that it can proactively create jobs. The intent of the program was to improve military movement speed, not to improve the economy. (although I think the US was in a small recession when it was started)
So as an Economist do you have any cites of government programs that have been shown to have more than a causal relationship with employment numbers on a national scale?
Don’t take out a modifier from my sentence and then act like I’m some idiot who doesn’t understand finance or economics. It’s not cool.
Again, the difference between macro and micro. The economy as a whole is not zero sum. However, that does not make every person’s success a “not zero sum” situation.
I open a restaurant and drive $20k/mo in sales, that does not mean I’ve grown the economy $20k/mo. Chances are, many of my customers are not net new spenders in the restaurant industry, they are shifting their spending away from one restaurant, to my restaurant. Now, some of my customers will be people who are spending more because my food is just that damn good, that is growth in the industry, but they are only part of my revenue base. When folks are struggling with their discretionary income, there’s going to be more shifting and less net new revenue.
Many successes are completely zero sum. Take the idea of getting a better job, or training for a better job. If there are 20 people applying for a good job, one person getting it means 19 don’t. If one of those 19 trained themselves up to be a better candidate, then they’re the 1, and the other guy gets to be in the 19. Push this idea on the poor, and instead of 20 candidates, it’s 200, and you get 1 hire and 199 still have crappy jobs. The only growth you get is in the training industry.
Of course not, but now we’re talking at cross purposes.
The argument has been put forth that the economy CAN’T grow because only demand drives an economy and people won’t increase demand until the economy grows. And yet that is in defiance of the obvious fact that all previous recessions have ended.
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
Many successes are completely zero sum. Take the idea of getting a better job, or training for a better job. If there are 20 people applying for a good job, one person getting it means 19 don’t. If one of those 19 trained themselves up to be a better candidate, then they’re the 1, and the other guy gets to be in the 19. Push this idea on the poor, and instead of 20 candidates, it’s 200, and you get 1 hire and 199 still have crappy jobs. The only growth you get is in the training industry.
[/QUOTE]
But no, that isn’t necessarily zero sum.
If you go out right now and get trained as a truck driver, you will be filling an unmet need in the economy, assuming you aren’t some sort of unhirable basket case. The economy is short of qualified truck drivers all over the place, as in fact it has been for years and years. You don’t have to drive very far on any major highway to see “Drivers Wanted” signs on trucks.
Heck, get trained to do my job (not truck driving) and apply. Would you? Please. We’ve been looking for another person for two frickin’ YEARS.
Training up in some fields does mean you will bump someone else, but
That’s not true in all fields and
Even in those where it is true, the addition of more talent can mean that the field is staffed with better people, thereby making it more productive and making the economy more productive as a whole.
Whoa, the goalposts are moving so fast I can hardly keep up! Basically, you’re just defining away your problem - any government program that actually created jobs, is by your definition “not a jobs program”, so therefore your thesis that government can never create jobs is kept intact.
“Left leaning CNN.” If you were to see an actual left leaning broadcast like the The Young Turks on Youtube, you would wet yourself in horror. Just because it isn’t Faux News, does not mean it is “left leaning.”
What rule book are we going by? I see nothing in Roberts or in the LD rules that limit a persons ability to clarify earlier positions.
By “creating” jobs I meant the claim and or attempt by politicians to increase employment through their offices through monetary incentives.
I am using the contemporary usage of the term, as I doubt anyone in congress or Obama is claiming that this round of stimulus as well as recent claims by GOP hopefuls.
Thus your complaint that I would not claim a definition provided by another without protest is invalid as I had never accepted it.
It is quite clear that being rude is disallowed in most formal types of debate as it is in Roberts or in LD.
In your interjection your use of an imperative verb, which is typically considered rude and disrespectful.
The fact that the chosen interjection is a command to draft animals re-enforces that fact.
Your claim that I committed a fallacy of “moving the goal post” is invalid, I conceded the point of government actions as a consumer as producing jobs. After that concession I clarified my original intent.
Thus your entire response can be viewed as nothing more then Ignoratio Elenchi or “red herring”.
Are you unable to to produce evidence that the government can “create jobs” through incentives like currently proposed by Obama and several Congressmen or you are you just unwilling to conceded the point.
I would like evidence from the GOP side that Rick Perry’s policies had a direct net gain in employment also. I see nothing to show that he had any effect at the national level.
rat avatar, I don’t know what particular programs you are complaining about, but by your own admission government does create jobs. Your main argument seems to be that the government does this so inefficiently that there is no net gain in jobs. But the purpose of government jobs programs is not to be the long term producer of jobs. It is to stimulate economic activity. This in itself creates jobs and increases general demand. When coupled with government investment in industry to counter risk aversion, industry can grow and provide the long term jobs.
Now I don’t know if the current proposals will work or not. But this is how we obtained economic success in the past. It’s not impossible.
I am against the government wasting time with “job creation” incentives, the rest of your claim on my stance is a strawman.
Show me where “Government jobs programs is not to be the long term producer of jobs. It is to stimulate economic activity”
That is the evidence I have been asking for, no one has given a single cite for a program that was created to “stimulate economic activity” with evidence that it produces jobs.
I have given cites that show that the success of said programs is minimal.
I would rather we fund education, science and infrastructure vs waste money on tax breaks and or incentives (same in my mind) that only appear to help political election campaigns.
rat avatar, the Hoover Dam was cited before. You don’t accept it. But you sound ridiculous trying to claim that the Hoover Dam did not stimulate economic activity. There is an enormous amount of industry made possible by the electricity and controlled water supply it provides. Municipalities depend on it to exist to supply that industry, and there is all the activity that grows from the existence of these industries and populations. That’s what economic activity is, and when you pay people to be productive, by definition you are creating economic activity. Again, that is not a guarantee of a net gain. But your argument requiring a higher level proof that the government can stimulate the economy through jobs programs is ludicrous. If you can demonstrate that any particular proposal would not result in a net gain, go for it. It shouldn’t be hard, our representatives are mostly crooks who make decisions based on personal gain, so many government programs are doomed to failure anyway. But that does not make it impossible to stimulate the economy through government programs.
I do not require a higher level of proof, I am asking for ANY evidence that monetary incentives create jobs.
Do not rephrase my argument in any other way.
hoover dam would need to be an entire new thread, I am sure lots of people benefited from it but I have serious issues with it due to environmental concerns.
I have already conceded infrastructure is a good investment, I argued the 5000 or so BELOW min wage jobs (corrected for inflation) that the project did little to help those “workers”
So you can berate me, but it appears that no one has any evidence (I never said proof BTW) that these employment incentive tax breaks will do anything but reduce our tax revenue and LIMIT our ability to do projects that do create jobs.
The evidence is that although firms do hire people and claim the incentives they were typically planning on hiring anyway. So why not maintain a higher level of government services and a higher tax intake if you do believe that projects like hoover dam add jobs.
It is an odd thing, debating “liberals” who are supporting Trickle-down economics just because their guy is proposing it.
Your environmental concerns have nothing to do with the fact that the federal government can and does stimulate the economy by creating jobs through spending on infrastructure projects like Hoover Dam and the interstate highway system.
Roberts Rules of Order is a guide to running meetings, not debates.
Lincoln-Douglas debate format is mainly used by high schools, and is not really used here on the SDMB.
Being “rude” is also forbidden in this particular forum (Great Debates). If you feel that I have been rude to you, I invite you to click “report this post”, and have the moderators adjudicate on your behalf.
No, a red herring is a tactic designed to distract attention away from the original point. My point was on topic.
Trickle up. Hiring people to do infrastructure work is putting money in the hands of workers. The very people who spend, thereby generating demand.
Trickle down is cutting taxes for the wealthy with a dream that they will for some unknown reason, start hiring people. Both claim they will increase demand. But tax cuts to the wealthy do not. Thirty years of proof is there to see.
The infrastructure work should be done only by American workers with American products to maximize the economic benefits. I guarantee the Chinese would scream if we did that. I guarantee the companies would want to buy cheaper foreign products to increase their profits.
Money in the hands of workers results in an economic multiplier. They create other jobs . They address demand, the thing that is missing from trickle down.
Or maybe they simply can’t find the product in the US?
What if the US made product is overpriced shit? Should we waste tax money on crap that won’t last? Or buy the best valued product available?
A government program to build windmills sounds great on paper, but where do you buy the windmills from? The best are Vestas, the only US ones I know of are from GE.
So what do you think of GE? They don’t even pay corporate taxes. Your plan is to give tax money to GE, so they can give their executives bonuses.
Are you also going to force those workers to buy American? Most of the workers you refer to have no problem taking that money to Walmart and buying lots of cheap crap from China.
Great, you’re plan borrows money from China, makes the Walton family richer, hurts unions, and promotes exploration of the American poor.