When new jobs are created in the private sector, new money "trickles" into our economy. This is especially true when new businesses are started or additional services are included in "old" business. The interesting thing about this process is that the money these "new" workers are paid is money that was not originally part of our economy. Contrasting this idea with the creation of government jobs such as infrastructure is a must. The government cannot create wealth. It can, I suppose create wealth for individuals (think tax evasion, think pork, think Charlie Rangel). It cannot introduce wealth into our economy. It can only, I'm afraid to say, redistribute "original" wealth.
The discussion today was whether the free market or the government would be quicker to upend joblessness. Could the government in one giant fell swoop use it's finances to immediately put people to work? Or, conversely could the free market, doing what it has always done, create jobs for the unemployed at a faster pace. It is a difficult subject to work with. It would seem, at first glance, that the government, once again unfortunately, has the funds to put people to work almost overnight. But, let's look at what has happened in this recent debacle. Before W left office he started the trillion dollar stimulus. O came later and put the majority of the remaining in play for "job creation". Are we better off now than before the stimulus was paid into the system? I find it necessary to remind you that every other day the estimates are "adjusted" and the adjustments always seem to favor the worse. We are currently standing at about 10% unemployed. So, since we're talking a period of two years, how fast has the government actually gotten people "to work"? Now, taking the antithesis of government job creation, private enterprise, into account, we'll find that the job creation, in this current fiscal fiasco, isn't there either. One probable problem with our comparison between private and public employment is the fact that the government in one way or another, has the ability to control private sector growth. Taxes, laws and other legislation can and has had effects on the private sector. Considering laws such as NAFTA (private enterprise creates jobs, but they aren't in the US), taxes on corporations and taxes on individuals, the government has done little to date to stimulate new small business growth. When, if we look, we see that small businesses are the beast of burden in our economy, if the government and the private sector worked together, could we solve the problems faster? The impediment to the two working together is they seem antithetical. Business wants low taxes and cheap labor. Government attempts to force on business, expensive labor and high taxes. Government does this to keep government in government. They don't want to lose their jobs. So I suppose in conclusion to my rambling dissertation I should say that I believe in situations such as we're facing, I expect government to work with private sector. Working together, without pork, without raising taxes, without leftist or rightwing rhetoric, we could probably solve our problems much faster, and possibly much more permanently.
J-
