Kevin Price
Obama's continued war on job creation
By Kevin Price
It is just like the Great Depression. We have a passionate, but misguided, President who is bent on an agenda of "doing something." That "something" has been an agenda that members of his own Administration have described as a means of making it worse, in order to change the role of government. Obama and his staff want to see the economy weaken, it appears, in order for government to be able to do more. More tax, more regulation, and less economic freedom. In the words of Eric Holder, "Positive change is the consequence of unfavorable and not favorable circumstance. Progress is the product of darkness, not light. Whenever you look into our past, this is true... It was economic turmoil that brought us the progressive era and the New Deal."
This philosophy may explain the reasons why Obama is pursuing policies that destroy jobs and he is doing such on many fronts. The Financial Post gives several examples of the government's war on employment:
© Kevin Price
November 1, 2010
It is just like the Great Depression. We have a passionate, but misguided, President who is bent on an agenda of "doing something." That "something" has been an agenda that members of his own Administration have described as a means of making it worse, in order to change the role of government. Obama and his staff want to see the economy weaken, it appears, in order for government to be able to do more. More tax, more regulation, and less economic freedom. In the words of Eric Holder, "Positive change is the consequence of unfavorable and not favorable circumstance. Progress is the product of darkness, not light. Whenever you look into our past, this is true... It was economic turmoil that brought us the progressive era and the New Deal."
This philosophy may explain the reasons why Obama is pursuing policies that destroy jobs and he is doing such on many fronts. The Financial Post gives several examples of the government's war on employment:
- Obama knows that his political success was linked to the unions and that is why he is carrying that movement's water, no matter the cost in jobs and dollars. The Post article notes that, by "gaining a bargaining monopoly in workplaces, labor unions have negotiated above-market compensation and benefits for their members, which have driven governments toward bankruptcy, priced unionized businesses out of markets and destroyed jobs."
- Government take over and restructuring of GM. Under US bankruptcy law, everyone, including the unions, pay the price of a business failure. This is among the many reasons GM should have gone into traditional bankruptcy. Under Obama's deal, unions received a "sweetheart deal and subvert the rights of bondholders. The union had US$20-billion of claims and was awarded a 39% stake in the company plus a US$10-billion payment into the UAW health care trust fund. The bondholders had US$27-billion of claims and ended up with only 10% of the company. The administration's abuse of power discourages investors from making capital available to companies that might be targeted for government intervention."
- Federal regulations have long been harsh on businesses with over 50 employees. Many Americans have believed that there was something unique about the US character, that 80 percent of all businesses were small (under 50 employees). The reality is that laws that are targeted against companies with 50 employees or more force many businesses to never grow to that number or beyond. The new "Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010" adds to that problem. The Post notes that "ObamaCare's mandates, taxes and penalties kick in when an employer has more than 50 employees, and they apply to all employees, so one effect of the law is to discourage small businesses — which create most American jobs — from hiring more than 50 people."
- I really enjoyed the libertarian classic, Restoring the American Dream by Robert Ringer. In it, he proposed a radical theory to eliminate unemployment virtually overnight. He called it the "Quick as hell employment theory." Simply put, eliminate all benefits and watch people get jobs "quick as hell." This may seem too harsh for you, but it is certainly better than extending unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, or almost two years, like the current government is doing. Besides costing a fortune, it is creating an entitled nation that is less than motivated to find work.
- The list goes on, such as minimum wage laws that create barriers between the less skilled and the jobs they greatly need (minimum wage is roughly 50 percent higher when the Obama Administration began). Then there is the stimulus package that cost almost $800 billion. This stimulus was necessary, we were told, to prevent unemployment from going above 8 percent; with it, joblessness is pushing 10 percent. The so-called financial "reform" act of 1,408 pages that nobody (including the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Chris Dodd) has any idea exactly what it will do. This much we do know, is that it is adding thousands of pages in regulations for financial institutions to navigate through that will cost businesses and jobs dearly. We have all heard about the moratorium of offshore drilling costing upwards of $3 billion in revenue and tens of thousands in jobs. If this continues, the permanent job loss could reach as high as 400,000. Spending that scares investors and the death of tax cuts that would spur growth round out the list of the Obama job killers.
© Kevin Price
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