WE, labor, the workers, are the "job creators"

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

Thanks to this thread started by the clown, I never thought about it this way before

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1507970

i am thinking about "job creators" in a whole new way. Demand creates jobs, wages create demand, therefore, no matter what the right wing loons say, we, the workers, create the jobs. When wages go down, (and they are being depressed), jobs disappear.

Tax the billionaires, tax the rich, and leave us job creators alone.

[hughee99]

1. So when it comes to the unemployment rate, we should blame the workers?

If the workers create jobs, why don't they just create more jobs now and we can lower the unemployment rate. As unemployment goes down, the labor market tightens and wages go up as employers have to offer higher wages to get good people.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

2. i get what you are saying, and I am certainly not an

economics major, but what I do know is this --

Taxes are at an all time low, and profits are at an all time high, and still, there are no jobs. At least in my area of the country.

Everyone I know is either out of a job, or, more commonly, working for less pay, and often, at the same job. No one is getting raises, and if they are, they are not even keeping up with inflation. In the less skilled occupations, it is common for people to have 2 part-time jobs. Unfilled, high paying jobs can get hundreds of applicants. All this taken together suggests to me that the money in the form of wages, not be spent at the local level, is hurting rather than helping our economy.

But, as I said, I am not an economist. i just thought the idea that the workers actually provide the "special sauce" that means job creation in the form of demand, is a new way of thinking for me.

[hughee99]

3. I see what you're saying, and while the workers (consumers) are necessary

for job creation, the ability to create jobs is not completely within their power to do.

[starroute]

6. How about we say workers create jobs and bosses destroy them?

Right now the workers are under too much of a load to keep up with the ongoing job-destruction by the bosses, so the economy is bleeding jobs. Let even a few of the currently unemployed or under-employed workers get decently-paying, stable employment and the multiplier effect will create a whole lot more.

[hack89]

7. Demand increases jobs.

there is no demand for certain skills right now.

[eilen]

4. You have that right. There is decreased demand

d/t no extra money besides the basics and the debt servicing.

We are transitioning our economy and it is and will continue to be painful. Redundancies caused by a culture of consumerism (buying more and more) are being corrected because we have run out of room and money to pay for all these imports, further the money we spend does not stay in our country to circulate through our economy but just goes into some international corporate bank account so even if we were still shopping, it would be like running in place only our bank accounts would get smaller instead of our rear ends.

Unfortunately, our leaders are still embedded in the free market, import/export, global, international banking/trading model that doesn't work so things will continue as they are and get worse until states and localities decide to try something different and tell the federal gov. to fuck off. In which I believe they are getting close to doing with these debt limit, trillionathon cutting bullshit talks going on.

[indurancevile]

5. Demand doesn't really create unless it can command labor to do the creation.

In barter or similar systems, it can; but in our system, the money men control labor to a great degree. Because they control the majority of the money & productive assets, thus "jobs". The state can also "create jobs" because it has some control over money as well, but it is a creature of the money men & does their bidding to a great degree.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Gibberish.

The only thing relevant to the creation of a job, is someone willing to purchase the work product.

Everyone in between is simply facilitating the transaction.

[indurancevile]

14. And in terms of productive assets & wealth, the top 1% have about 40% & the top 10%

control about 90%.

That is the effective "demand" that is able to command labor.

I may want a new refrigerator, but limited disposable income & no access to a factory makes my demand impotent.

[lumberjack_jeff]

15. Only your lack of capital makes your demand impotent.

If you want a refrigerator and have the cash to pay for it, someone will build it for you. Your buying dollars command the labor.

[indurancevile]

16. Yes. And that is the situation we find ourselves in today. Most of the money & assets are at the

top. Thus people's "demand" per se doesn't create jobs. It might if we existed in a barter system, but we don't.

When the division of wealth is greatly skewed, demand is impotent. And that situation can go along for decades quite nicely, as can be seen by how the third world toddled along for years with a thin crust of very rich, a slightly bigger crust of administrators & people who catered to the upper crust, and a mass of peasants and unemployed urban workers, all in fairly dire poverty.

My post was not gibberish. You just didn't get it.

If the people who control the assets want to spend them making yachts for their own class, that's what the money will get spent on. It doesn't take 90% of the population to keep the 10% in style; it doesn't even require 90% of the population to provide some minimal food/shelter/clothing to the 90%. The employment needed to provide those things is very minimal, in fact.

What we think of "middle class" america was the product of a more equitable distribution of income & wealth. It is the distribution of income that creates the middle class, the "demand" & the related jobs, not the demand that creates the jobs & the middle class.

The distribution of income was the result of policy choices. Policy is changing; effective demand is thus drying up.

[lumberjack_jeff]

17. The moving target.

Your original post indicated that demand doesn't drive employment, rather, the capital which controls labor does. This is gibberish - straight out of the "job creators" playbook. Someone will always find a way to meet a market demand, and hire the labor necessary to do it.

You are now saying something with which I can agree: wealth inequality has greatly impaired the ability of the middle and working class to collectively drive any job creation with their demand. That doesn't change the reality that it's still demand that is lacking in this economy, and the wealthiest may be the only place to get the capital to restart the business cycle. If they were each motivated to buy a few thousand refrigerators, a few hundred cars and several dozen yachts, the free market might work, but they aren't, so government tax policy should step in.

[indurancevile]

19. There is no moving target, just your misunderstanding.

My post had nothing to do with the "job creators playbook." It had to do with things as they presently stand.

I started out with "the power to command labor" for a reason -- because "a job" is done in exchange for payment, which in our system is money -- in distinction from earlier systems, where people might exchange labor/goods for labor (tribal), or take labor by force of arms (slavery, feudalism), or take labor in exchange for land occupancy (feudal), etc.

You keep talking about "demand" as if it were something separate from "money" -- but in the modern world system, demand effectively equals MONEY POWER.

If "demand" isn't accompanied by money it's effectively NOT demand, except on the margins (where, e.g., I might mow my neighbor's lawn in exchange for babysitting).

When you say "demand" is lacking, it's the same thing as saying money is lacking. When you say that the government should step in and tax away money from the wealthy, you concede that demand = money.

And it's not just that ordinary people don't have enough money/assets to "collectively drive any job creation with their demand." Their money "demand" for goods has to be sufficient to generate profit for those who DO have money -- in our system. And not just any profit, but profit at or above other possible investments out there. A factory in China is more profitable than a factory in the US. So are real estate bubbles & government arms contracts.

"Someone will always find a way to meet a market demand, and hire the labor necessary to do it."

This is counterfactual; there's unmet demand (ineffective "desire," as opposed to effective "money") everywhere you look, and always has been. What constitutes a market demand depends on the structure of the market. When a market is structured such that 10% of the people control 90% of the assets/capital, there will be little to no "job creation" regardless of lots of unmet "desire". Latin America worked that way for a century. It can happen here.

In short, it's simplistic to say that ordinary people's demand for goods or services creates jobs, and use of the word "demand" obscures the actual state of things. "Demand" = money. What I was saying was just an expansion on the op.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Demand = money + desire

Wealth concentrated in investments and offshore tax havens is still money, but it is not demand.

There's plenty of money (or creditworthiness); those who control it simply don't know what to spend it on, so it is not demand.

Likewise, desire without the means to meet it (money) isn't demand.

"The power to command labor" in the sense which I currently understand you mean, is potential energy. Absent the desire for their work product it's idle.

We could inspire those with the capital to spend it in ways which employ people through the tax code. Once that happens, ordinary workers will spend instead of sequestering it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. A job is created by someone buying a widget.

Everyone in the middle is simply exploiting an opportunity to profit on the transaction.

Sending out a resume or developing my skill with a welder does not create a job. Buying a car, washing machine or boat does. If you're making the argument that a worker is more likely to spend their money in job creating ways, I'll agree.

[canoeist52]

10. Who's going to buy the widgets? When workers don't get paid enough

to afford those widgets that you make, you're out of a job. If corporations hoard what profit they make,instead of investing in the business, (paying workers) they're out of business.

If workers are afraid of losing their jobs, they won't buy unnecessary widgets. No demand, no sales.

How do we break this downward spiral??

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. How?

Raise business taxes. Big businesses are sitting on huge piles of cash. If they know they'll be taxed heavily on their profit, they'll spend it on widgets to reduce their tax liability.

Only orders for widgets will create employment for widget technicians.

The cash being held must begin circulating through the economy again.

[proud patriot]

11. Strong Unions=Strong Middle Class = Strong Economy

it's elementary

[blindpig]

12. The corollary is profits are theft.

The hours of our labor which they appropriate we can never get back.

It is a big fucking deal.

k&r

[readmoreoften]

18. If all the rich people disappeared tomorrow, there'd still be work to be done.

Rich people do not "create" jobs. They suck profit from the work we create, the work we can do perfectly well without them.

[indurancevile]

21. Albeit we can do the work fine without them, as things currently stand, they do create jobs.

Or not, as they see fit.

Which is why unemployment is over 9% right now.

[jmowreader]

20. CUSTOMERS are the job creators!