Hire someone, or else...
I recently received a comment on my blog from Trenton Powers. Naturally, when people comment on my blog and leave a backlink, I will go check out their blog. Two posts on his blog are certainly worth discussing.
In one post he says this:
As a runner-up to the Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce Businessperson of The Year in 2007 I know a thing or two about business and economics. For instance I know that this purported letter from a conspicuously anonymous, alleged reader of the reactionary conservative rag, the National Review is hogwash:
Small business will start to hire when one big thing happens.Sales Growth. End of story.
This goes beyond simple intellectual dishonesty and charges head-first to the realm of deliberate misrepresentation. There is no correlation between small business’ hiring practice and sales growth. Only the presence of robust regulation can create an environment conducive to increased employment opportunity in the private sector. By extension, government expansion is a necessity if one wishes to create a job-friendly atmosphere.
In another post he says this:
Just to take the previous post a step further, wouldn’t it fix a whole butt load of problems if government were to mandate that small business hire people if they earn profits above an arbitrary threshold?
For instance, its really not unreasonable for a family owned polymer-injection business, or a start-up pinking enterprise to be required to bring on another worker if that business makes more than $20,000 in profits, or they could be required to take on a migrant worker if they pass a $10,000 profit threshold.
This is not a bad idea.
You can see from the comments that I made, that I think that this is a bad idea. Trenton defends this idea as outside the box thinking. However, in the Age of Obama, I can’t think of a clearer example of knee-jerk, inside-the-box thinking than to conclude that the best way to solve a problem is government intervention. I am curious what the readers of the Independent Bloghorn think of Trenton’s idea.
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Wow, which school of economics did TP graduate from? The London School of Economics? Karl would be proud of you. The reality is that Marxist Economic theory has never worked, and America was founded on opposing theories. If you have not read the constitution or the bill of rights or the Declaration of Independence.
I would then recommend starting a business, putting everything you own into it, making it successful or in many cases just trying to survive. Then lets check your theory.
The current administration has never created jobs. POTUS has never owned a business, he has only worked for “Non-Profit” organizations that feed off of donations and taxpayer dollars to survive, thus his theories. The Obama administration is either incredibly stupid or purposefully trying to crash the American Economy, either way your theory and the Reckless Obamanomics theory is the antithesis of American Founding Fathers Principles.
Anyone who uses the phrase “fix a whole butt load of problems ” in an article about economics obviously is to not be taken seriously at one’s own peril.
I guess I’ll have to live in peril.
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From Mark Steyn:
No, the idea that you, to qualify for a $6,000 dollar tax credit, you pay someone or you hire someone and take them on at $105,000 dollars. That’s what I mean about a know-nothing administration. It doesn’t understand why people hire people. You hire people because you are growing your business, you’ve got more sales, and you need to make more product. That’s why you hire people. You don’t hire someone to give them $105,000 dollars to access a $6,000 dollar tax credit. This is stupid. Only a moron would think that does anything to create jobs. But let me say something else, too. You said you hire people. I hire people in the United States. I’ve run businesses in other countries, too. This is an incredibly cumbersome, bureaucratic country to hire people in.
http://hughhewitt.com/transcripts.aspx?id=7baa3666-a838-4c82-ae43-930332a67094
Steyn has a good point. The tax credit for hiring is counterproductive. It should be revoked.
Trenton Powers´s last blog ..I’m somewhat dismayed by the tenacity with which conservatives cling to their economic theories
I am somewhat dismayed by the tenacity with which liberals cling to theory. I honestly could care less about the theoretical merits of a bad idea. This really boils down to issues involving basic property rights. If a small business owner runs a business successfully enough to make a profit, then that profit is their private property. Our country wasn’t founded on the principle, and the Constitution doesn’t allow for the federal government to mandate what a private entity does with its property. It can take their property through confiscatory taxation, but it cannot mandate that a business owner hire someone. The fact that a business is profitable demonstrates that to some level the owner of the business is doing something successfully. To assert that this business owner which has already demonstrated that they are good at managing their own assets should be forced to allow the government (absolutley dismal record when it comes to financial management) to dictate how they should run their business is completely stupid.
This isn’t just me clinging to some backwater conservative economic theory. My reaction to your idea is rooted in years of experience managing employees and years of experience operating as a self-employed small businessman. At worst, I am clinging to a harsh reality that a business always operates from a finite amount of resources. Choosing to allocate those resources towards hiring employees is a decision that should only be made by that business owner. Once the employee is hired, I can live with the government regulating the relationship between and employer and employee. But for the government to force a business to hire and employee is a paradoxical affront to that business owner’s success.
It would be a lot less expensive and intrusive against business owners for the government to stop giving unemployment benefits. If you are unemployed you get a grant for a few hundred dollars to register an LLC and start your own business. Those who can’t run a successful business should be the ones who deserve to get the government breathing down their necks and trampling on their rights.
You have to appreciate the sheer volume of “theories” that the liberal will invent to figure out how to squander the success of others and spend other people’s money.
There are so many things wrong with this post I don’t know where to start. First off tax credits are nothing more than an infusion of taxpayer re-directed funds that generate waste.
“I submit that in the words of my colleague Speng Musselman:
* “There is no proven correlation between sales growth and small-business hiring practices.” Only the presence of robust regulation can cultivate an economic environment condusive to jobs growth.
Therefore:
* Government should step in and mandate that businesses with net profits above an arbitrary threshhold be required to hire additional workers.”
To be blunt, you (TP) and your friend (SM) display a remarkably stunted understanding of economic practicality – which is typical of those enamored with Keynesian models and their extreme variants (i.e. intromissive Marxism). Which in themselves are superiorly theoretical, non-quantitative models that neglect empiricism and other measures of viability.
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“There is no correlation between small business’ hiring practice and sales growth.”
Really? So inversely no sales growth means what? If a business is successful and sales growth grow and owners want to continue to be “greedy” and wish to capture more growth and wealth, they will eventually need to expand or give up growth to their competition.
I am constantly amazed at how much misunderstanding of markets there is with the general public.
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Also, I have to point out that TP’s “idea” was implemented in a similar form in the former Soviet Union which constantly boasted of its extremely small unemployment rate.
VH´s last blog ..IPCC begins to acknowledge mistakes in its reporting
So what was wrong with having a small unemployment rate again?
Trenton Powers´s last blog ..My impeccable progressive credentials are going to take a hit on this one
Well, in the case of the Soviet Union, it didn’t lend itself to innovation and real economic growth, did it? They lied about their GDP numbers for decades but eventually they couldn’t outrun economic reality.
If a small company or any sized company is required to hire someone at a given profit threshold instead of it having the freedom to allocate its resources (for example, paying off debt, buying supplies, replacing and repairing equipment, research and development, pay raises for good employees, moving to a better location, etc) as it sees fit to compete, then it will simply stagnate and it will eventually not be able to hire anyone. Business owners who have skin in the game have far better knowledge of their business and where to allocate resources than bureaucrats: That is one of the many principle economic lessons of communism and socialism.
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Great Point VH, as for Liberty Pen the constitution forbids the Fed Gov from stepping and doing anything other securing the borders and preventing the plundering of my property to give to those who have no property. Sorry dude but equal rights does not ensure equal results that responsibility rests solely on the individual not the government.
Anything else is Socialism and Karl Marx is been spoken way to much in this administration as POTUS’s and the shadow party Democrats have literally shredded the constitution and not upheld their Oath. Yes they every one of them in Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches of the Federal and State Governments, Swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution from all enemies domestic and foreign. Right now it is Washington and the Shadow Party Progressive Democrats that are the enemy that have trashed the Constitution see more on Reckless Obamanomics
TP, The Progressive movement will never achieve a small unemployment number, it was the progressives that created the first wave of unemployment with the min wage increase they voted for several years ago, and like clockwork unemployment began ticking up, HS kids had fewer and fewer jobs and Unions rejoiced because their benefits are tied into these COLA adjustments. Unions Rejoice People lose their jobs and the SEIU jockstraps blame the “Evil Corporations, just as they were taught to do by their mentor Saul Alinsky, This scenario has been repeated over and over since FDR forced employers to unionize their labor force to recieve Government contracts in the ’30s and we can see how effective that was. How many Steel Plants are operating in the US right now, Oh yes lets see 2 Companies and one is NUCOR Steel a non-union employee owned corporation. While the rest of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania are starving for jobs for the last 30 years
I am not saying that the only issue facing the economy, however the main issue is the stupid management of our tax dollars by our elected civil servants. They have been trusted with the purse strings and everyone of them have failed miserably.
Gentlemen this is not a Left right issue but a right wrong issue and at this juncture, Washington, on both sides of the isle have done a whole hell of alot of wrong, thus the term “A whole Butt Load of Problems” I believe a very accurate and well placed term, it is time to give the politicians “a butt load of problems with your foot!
oh by the way if you disagree with me you probably are a racist.
Time to get back to spending less then you make “its called Conservative Fiscal Policies” that is directed towards the State and Fed, follow the Constitution, Just follow the Oath of Office. and all will be well, America is by design the greatest country on the face of the earth and needs to stay that way. You don’t see people sneaking over the border of a communist country trying to break in for a better opportunity, didn’t think so.
M Cassel,
You have me slightly confused, are you under the impression that I advocate our government interceding within the private sector? I re-read my post and I don’t see how you made that connection. Everything I wrote can be validated, Keynesian economic models (as well as their variants) do not work and tax credits end up producing more waste than benefit.
The middle section under quotation is from
Trenton Powers’ post. They were used to illustrate a point, sorry dude.
With respect to your statement that the Constitution delineates governmental powers, it most certainly does, but that has not precluded the government from extending its reach.
theLibertyPen´s last blog ..A New Liberty Pen Interview
I think M Cassel was directing his comment to Trenton Powers not at the Liberty Pen.
I also reiterate what I said in my interview with Liberty Pen, in light of Mr. Powers’ love for the arbitrary:
the Liberty Pen: Regarding your exploration of liberalism, could you tell us what you have learned?
The Independent Bloghorn: Above all, I have learned that liberalism, in its most secular and progressive incarnations, is a basket case of competing theories and paradigms. Ultimately, the only narrative that unites the various “brands” of liberalism is the narrative of relativism. While this creates an environment where academics can come up with some interesting, but ultimately, useless academic studies for the next interesting, but ultimately, useless academic conference, you eventually end up in a place where there are no standards for determining which parts of this project are rubbish, which parts are garbage, and which parts are just trash. When you combine this complete lack of purpose or direction with a rather militant secularist bias, any attempt to create meaning in the world becomes an act of arbitrary capriciousness. This is why when you examine any piece of legislation or policy that is heavily informed by liberalism, you will find arbitrary capriciousness as the foundation. For example, which cultural signifiers should entitle someone to the benefits of Affirmative Action? Answer: we will pick an ever-expanding list of ethnicities, which when studied in any depth within the cultural paradigms of our invention are completely meaningless. Where is the poverty line? Answer: we will pick a number. How many degrees does the earth’s climate have to change for us to be worked into a mindless frenzy? Answer: we will pick a number. I got to the point where it seems like anyone with half a brain would see through this. However, if you can replace common sense with the ignorant elitism that comes from an advanced degree, then I guess you can get away with creating whatever truth it is you want to believe in.
the Liberty Pen: What aspects, if any, are missing from a liberal education?
The Independent Bloghorn: One word: Reality. I mean this in the most profound philosophical sense. The concept of reality has been so thoroughly deconstructed, that it has no bearing whatsoever on what is being learned from your typical liberal education.
admin´s last blog ..Should Government Force Small Businesses to Hire People?
How do you define “liberal education” anyway? Literature? Arts?
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Basically as a discipline where the overwhelming majority of the faculty is liberal, which in most American Universities includes most of the liberal arts, social sciences, and any other discipline that bases itself off of high theory and continental philosophy. My experience is with English departments.
admin´s last blog ..Should Government Force Small Businesses to Hire People?
I don’t think the government is actually forcing small business to hire people. As far as I know, the government will give tax credit for businesses who’ll help them in their goal. The goal is to provide enough job to decrease the unemployment rate.
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So, who came up with the $20,000 figure. What is that based upon? I never understood the statist obsession with central planning. Good for running gulags and concentration camps but not much else.
Whenever you engage someone like TP or an ObamaCare supporter regarding the compulsory aspects of legislation, they drone on and on about how it will reduce unemployment or the number of the uninsured.
They never…. NEVER… address the central question of how is it constitutional for the federal government to force you to purchase a service or hire an employee as TP has ably confirmed in his comments.
I think the $20,000 number was an arbitrary number. Like most liberal solutions, the point isn’t to make sense, you just pick a number and get to the business of regulating and telling people what to do as quickly as possible. Damn the details! Facts and statistics can be easily manipulated to tell you what you want them to tell you.