The rich are not job creators by virtue of being rich

[Galraedia]

"The Republican talking point comes through loud and clear: DO NOT call them "The rich." Call them "job creators."

This talking point is designed to get away from "rich vs. the rest of us" (because the GOP's wordsmiths know they will lose that battle) and focus on job creation. The talking point is also false.

The rich, whether they be business owners or investors, should not hire new workers simply because they have more money available to them. Why should they? It's a waste of money unless there's more money to be made by hiring those new workers. Demand for goods and services drives new job creation -- if there is money to be made, then of course a business should hire. Of course an investor should invest.

The GOP would love for us to believe that lower taxes on the rich lead to more job creation. This is false, and empirically so -- with the lowest effective tax rates in the last century, what have the rich and the big corporations done over the past ten years? Saved their money. Squirrelled it away, waiting for a time when demand dictates that they invest it hiring efforts in order to make more money.

So the next time you hear John Boehner on NPR or another traditional-media outlet whining about President Obama's desire to increase taxes on "job creators," call the outlet and demand that they ask Boehner the question: "Exactly how do top earners create jobs?" And follow up until Boehner admits he's trying to hoodwink America."

Source: http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/9597/the-rich-are-not-job-creators

[sam11111]

1. all jobs can come from 3 sources - none of them Private Sector

-1) Co-ops..can produce any and everything.
-2) WPA (permanent WPA, zero unemployment forever)

-3) regular gov jobs - teachers, road repair, cops, food inspectors, water main repair, NIH researchers, insect control, bad-business regulators, school repair, county health clinic staff...all the jobs that have been cut by the GOP.

PS. None of these three job sources have a rich owner donating gobs of cash to republican election war-chests.

Co-ops have elected managers with a salary decided by the employees.

[hughee99]

4. If the government just hired all the unemployed

then the unemployment issue is solved.

Then we can move on to the government debt/deficit issue. Maybe we can get a bunch of rich people who made a ton of money in the private sector to pay for these jobs.

Wait, it seems like even under this plan, we need the rich to pay for the jobs.

[krispos42]

2. Nobody hires people they don't they need

or buys equipment they don't think they can't use
or pays above-market prices for supplies or raw materials
or buys supplies or raw materials above and beyond what they think they can use
or pays above-market prices for wages.



As near-universal rule.


:shrug:


If you do, the board of directors and/or the shareholders can throw your ass out for reducing corporate profitability, which is a legal requirement.




If Rush Limbaugh or George Clooney were to open a deli... they wouldn't hire 50 full-time people and pay them $40 an hour... even though they easily could. That would be $4 million a year in wages, and about $300,000 a year in FICA tax. Either of them could easily afford that. But they won't.

They'd hire maybe 6 people full and part time, and they'd pay the manager maybe $25 an hour, and the rest of the employees between $9 and $15 an hour.

[Major Nikon]

3. It's just the latest wingnut scam, written by Limbaugh and orchestrated by the GOP

I don't know if Limbaugh was the first wingnut to coin the phrase, but you get the idea. It's just the latest in a long line of wingnut scam jobs. They aren't particularly clever or well thought out, but they resonate well with the useful idiots on the right.

To believe the rich are "job creators" you have to believe in the fairy tale about supply-side. You have to believe the rich have all the magic fairy dust, and giving them more money means they can buy more fairy dust and trickle it down to the rest of us. In other words, we have only the investor class to thank for our jobs, because without them we would all be unemployed.

It reads like a fairy tale, because it is a fairy tale. Demand is what creates jobs. Because you live and breathe, you create demand. That demand creates jobs. Go out and get a job, you create even more demand. Spending the money you make feeds other demands. That's how the world goes round. The wingnuts want to tell you it's flat, and the reasoning they use is just as idiotic. It's kind of funny till you realize the truly sad part is there's more than a few people who nod their heads with blank stares when someone tells them the world is flat.

[SixthSense]

5. Actually...

... many of the presently rich are so because they were job destroyers outsourcing our industry to the lowest wage country.

There ceased being a connection between being wealthy and earning it a long time ago.

[galloglas]

6. Bingo !! Bingo !! n/t