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2012-01-15 -Election 2012

Obama Promises Tax Incentives for Job Creation

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Posted by Fred 2012-01-15 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 Good inline commentary, Fred.

Coupla points, though.

-If a factory is "sufficiently automated", to use your term, doesn't that mean there aren't a whole lot of jobs there?

-At what point do we address the underlying systemic problem of excessive expectation of material standard of living by the workforce? Is the Great Recession the means of doing this? IMO, it isn't, at least so far.

Extra points to you for pointing out the fact that politicians don't really care about businesses succeeding other than to parasitize them for campaign contributions and to use them as a funding source for their rent-seeking regulatory henchmen.

Extra extra points for introducing me to the term "street lice" which will now become part of my lexicon.

Posted by no mo uro 2012-01-15 08:15|| 2012-01-15 08:15|| Front Page Top

#2 At what point do we address the underlying systemic problem of excessive expectation of material standard of living by the workforce?

Define "excessive expectation".

Posted by Pappy 2012-01-15 12:11|| 2012-01-15 12:11|| Front Page Top

#3 When did the demand for cardboard boxes evaporate?

Who is building anything to put into those boxes?

Posted by Formerly Dan 2012-01-15 12:38|| 2012-01-15 12:38|| Front Page Top

#4 -If a factory is "sufficiently automated", to use your term, doesn't that mean there aren't a whole lot of jobs there?

I'm talking about reindustrializing, not (specifically) job creation. "Job creation" often ends up as "shovel-ready projects" involving public works with the accompanying expenditure of public funds in the form of contracts to campaign contributors.

Reindustrialization has to involve making things and selling them. If a factory is sufficiently automated to compete with the Chinese there are second-level economic benefits connected with it: somebody's got to do the programming, somebody's got to make the robots, somebody's got to sell the product, somebody's got to deliver it to market. All those represent jobs.

"If you build things they will come," to misquote a silly movie.

Posted by Fred 2012-01-15 12:40|| 2012-01-15 12:40|| Front Page Top

#5 The monstrous overhand of bad debts is one element which has sucked the life out of the US economy. Another element is high energy costs. Re-industrialization requires investment, and the money for that has been dedicated or is tied up. This is one aspect of Taibbi's "Vampire Squid" metaphor.
Clear the bad debts, get rid of the financial institutions that are TBTF, and there might be something left to invest in re-industrialization.
One thing the US is quite capable of making, and that is cheaper energy (think nukes, cooking down coal, and not so much drilling for more petro fuels). The NIMBYists and the lawfare specialists must be suppressed before that can happen.
Politicians are far better at destroying jobs and domestic industrial capacity than they have ever been at creating them. That goes for the GOP as well as the Democrats. Of course there will be no serious discussion of this in the 2012 campaign, just negative crap ads.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-01-15 13:44|| 2012-01-15 13:44|| Front Page Top

#6 The US has legitimate environmental and human rights [worker safety laws] issues all its industries must operate and comply with. Chinese industries do not. Tariffs may be necessary to redress that imbalance.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-01-15 13:48|| 2012-01-15 13:48|| Front Page Top

#7 excessive expectation of material standard of living by the workforce Some of the recent spike in workforce standard of living was financed by them either taking on debts they couldn't repay or by politicians giving away work/retirement bennies (mostly to public unions) that could not be paid for in years to come.
What can't go on forever, won't.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-01-15 13:51|| 2012-01-15 13:51|| Front Page Top

#8 Translation: found another way to pass $$$ to his pals.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2012-01-15 15:17|| 2012-01-15 15:17|| Front Page Top

#9 Bingo, grom.

Posted by Barbara 2012-01-15 15:22|| 2012-01-15 15:22|| Front Page Top

#10 500 people just laid off at a power plant because EPA wants it closed because its coal. Keeps opening the border for the hoards of extremely cheap, undocumented cheap labor to pour in. Killed the pipeline project, gulf drilling, fraqing, signed into law thousands of business reguLations and wants to send 500,000 troops to the unemployment line after sending the Hummer plants to China. And now this bs. The biggest dumbass for president in the history of mankind.

Posted by Snease Hupuper4845 2012-01-15 22:38|| 2012-01-15 22:38|| Front Page Top

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