Job Creators Fighting Back

Job Creators Fighting Back

John Stossel
Dec. 14, 2011

Some politicians claim that politicians create jobs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says, "My job is to create jobs."

What hubris! Government has no money of its own. All it does is take from some people and give to others. That may create some jobs, but only by leaving less money in the private sector for job creation.

Actually, it's worse than that. Since government commandeers scarce resources by force and doesn't have to peddle its so-called services on the market to consenting buyers, there's no feedback mechanism to indicate if those services are worth more to people than what they were forced to go without.

The only people who create real, sustainable jobs are in private businesses -- if they're unsubsidized.

Some CEOs are upset that people don't appreciate what they do. So they formed a group called the Job Creators Alliance.

Brad Anderson, former CEO of Best Buy, joined because he wants to counter the image of businesspeople as evil. When he was young, Anderson himself thought they were evil. But then he "stumbled into a business career" by going to work in a stereo store.

"I watched what happens in building a business. The Sound of Music, which became Best Buy, was 11 years old before I made a dollar of profit."

In 36 years, he turned that store into a $50 billion company.

Tom Stemberg, founder of Staples, got involved with the Job Creators Alliance because he's annoyed that the government makes a tough job much tougher.

He complains that government mostly creates jobs -- that kill jobs.

"They're creating $300 million worth of jobs in the new consumer financial protection bureau," Stemberg said, "which I don't think is going to do much for productivity in America. We're creating all kinds of jobs trying to live up to Dodd-Frank ... and those jobs don't create much productivity.

Now, Stemberg runs a venture capital business. "I helped create over 100,000 jobs myself," he said. "Pinkberry and City Sports and J. McLaughlin are growing and adding employment."

To do that, he had to overcome hurdles placed in the way by government.

"All that we get is grief and more hoops to jump through and more forms to fill out and more regulations to comply with," complained Stemberg. "Fastest-growing investment segment in venture capitalism: compliance software."

Compliance is the big word in business today. Every business has to have a compliance department. But resources are scarce, so these departments suck away creativity. It's one reason that these successful businesspeople don't think they could do today what they did in the past.

Mike Whalen, CEO of Heart of America Group, said he got started with loans from banks that took a chance on an unknown: "It is not an underwriting standard that can be dictated by Dodd-Frank with 55 pages. It's kind of a gut instinct."

But John Allison, who built BB&T Corp. into the 12th biggest bank in America, says that "gut instinct" is now illegal.

"It would be very difficult to do what we did then today. It was semi-venture capital thing. The government regulations (today) are so tight, including setting credit standards, particularly since the so-called financial crisis and since they ... changed the credit standards in the banking industry, making it very hard for the banks to finance small businesses."

These successful businessmen realize that in one way, they profit from the regulatory burden. They can absorb the costs. That gives them an advantage over smaller competitors.

"Somebody who wants to compete with us can't because we can afford to hire the guys that can read this stuff and to keep us in compliance with the law. They can't," Anderson said.

Politicians rarely understand this. One who learned it too late was Sen. George McGovern. After he left office, he started a small bed-and-breakfast and hit the regulatory wall he helped create. Later, he wrote, "I wish during the years I was in public office I had this firsthand experience about the difficulties businesspeople face. ... We are choking off business opportunity."

Wish they learned that before leaving office.

It does appear that the left in the USA are hell-bent on destroying our capitalist system. Everything Obama has done in the last 3 years has done nothing but make things worse than it was after Bush left us with the pile of shit we have.

TexasBlue wrote:It does appear that the left in the USA are hell-bent on destroying our capitalist system. Everything Obama has done in the last 3 years has done nothing but make things worse than it was after Bush left us with the pile of shit we have.

No but he "saved us from a depression", though the unemployment rate was 7.8 and went up to 9.1 and added 5 trillion in more debt. Unemployment is a little lower, due to millions no longer looking for work. I guess the Dems can brag about that for a while.

Mark85la wrote:Unemployment is a little lower, due to millions no longer looking for work. I guess the Dems can brag about that for a while.

Yeah... when the temps that got hired for Xmas get the slip and the rate goes back to 9%

TexasBlue wrote:It does appear that the left in the USA are hell-bent on destroying our capitalist system. Everything Obama has done in the last 3 years has done nothing but make things worse than it was after Bush left us with the pile of shit we have.

How is giving incentives to small business, or creating more government jobs to boost the economy, wrong?

Prey tell, what jobs have been created under Bush for 8 years with no taxes on the rich?

show me where every American has a job under the extension of the tax cuts by Obama.

I'll wait...

TexasBlue wrote:It does appear that the left in the USA are hell-bent on destroying our capitalist system. Everything Obama has done in the last 3 years has done nothing but make things worse than it was after Bush left us with the pile of shit we have.

Okay... rant #3 coming up thanks to your post here Tex...

This exactly what I was talking about in my response to Cookie last night.

The laft has been on an all-out assault on free market capitalism and the private sector businesses and business leaders that have provided the means for the creation of ALL the wealth and jobs this nation has created!

The blind hatred by the left of the very people who have made the wealth of America possible is inexplicable to me.

Sure, crony capitalism is ugly and reprehensible, and those in the private sector who deliberately practice it deserve our scorn. But FAR too often, as the article above rightly notes, many times the advantages handed to big businesses are the results of POLITICIANS attempts to CONTROL the private sector through burdensome and COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY regulations; insuring that only the big companies with the financial resources to deal with complying with the MOUNTAIN of regulations put in the path of the private sector businesses will be the ones that will survive.

The incessant meddling in the private sector by know-it-all leftists on the Hill is KILLING this country. It is death by a thousand cuts!

And I, for one, am sicked and damed tired of the non-stop wailing and gnashing of teeth by these leftists about private sector businesses, while nary a fucking peep is heard from a one of them about the abuses of Democrats on the Hill who make crony capitalism a constant feature of their agenda!

Honestly, this mindless, self-destructive and idiotic attack on the so-called "rich" by the left in this country just drives me insane!

Here I am, looking for a decent damned job, and those morons of OWS and Democrats on the Hill are BOUND AND DETERMINED to see to it that the very people who could provide me with that desperately needed job are DRIVEN OUT OF BUSINESS OR OUT OF THIS COUNTRY!!!

What the fuck is WRONG with these people??? Have they NEVER, EVER read a fucking history book???

dblboggie wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:It does appear that the left in the USA are hell-bent on destroying our capitalist system. Everything Obama has done in the last 3 years has done nothing but make things worse than it was after Bush left us with the pile of shit we have.

Okay... rant #3 coming up thanks to your post here Tex...

This exactly what I was talking about in my response to Cookie last night.

The laft has been on an all-out assault on free market capitalism and the private sector businesses and business leaders that have provided the means for the creation of ALL the wealth and jobs this nation has created!

The blind hatred by the left of the very people who have made the wealth of America possible is inexplicable to me.

Sure, crony capitalism is ugly and reprehensible, and those in the private sector who deliberately practice it deserve our scorn. But FAR too often, as the article above rightly notes, many times the advantages handed to big businesses are the results of POLITICIANS attempts to CONTROL the private sector through burdensome and COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY regulations; insuring that only the big companies with the financial resources to deal with complying with the MOUNTAIN of regulations put in the path of the private sector businesses will be the ones that will survive.

The incessant meddling in the private sector by know-it-all leftists on the Hill is KILLING this country. It is death by a thousand cuts!

And I, for one, am sicked and damed tired of the non-stop wailing and gnashing of teeth by these leftists about private sector businesses, while nary a fucking peep is heard from a one of them about the abuses of Democrats on the Hill who make crony capitalism a constant feature of their agenda!

Honestly, this mindless, self-destructive and idiotic attack on the so-called "rich" by the left in this country just drives me insane!

Here I am, looking for a decent damned job, and those morons of OWS and Democrats on the Hill are BOUND AND DETERMINED to see to it that the very people who could provide me with that desperately needed job are DRIVEN OUT OF BUSINESS OR OUT OF THIS COUNTRY!!!

What the fuck is WRONG with these people??? Have they NEVER, EVER read a fucking history book???

Couldn't have said it better myself.

dblboggie wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:It does appear that the left in the USA are hell-bent on destroying our capitalist system. Everything Obama has done in the last 3 years has done nothing but make things worse than it was after Bush left us with the pile of shit we have.

Okay... rant #3 coming up thanks to your post here Tex...

This exactly what I was talking about in my response to Cookie last night.

The laft has been on an all-out assault on free market capitalism and the private sector businesses and business leaders that have provided the means for the creation of ALL the wealth and jobs this nation has created!




The blind hatred by the left of the very people who have made the wealth of America possible is inexplicable to me.

Sure, crony capitalism is ugly and reprehensible, and those in the private sector who deliberately practice it deserve our scorn. But FAR too often, as the article above rightly notes, many times the advantages handed to big businesses are the results of POLITICIANS attempts to CONTROL the private sector through burdensome and COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY regulations; insuring that only the big companies with the financial resources to deal with complying with the MOUNTAIN of regulations put in the path of the private sector businesses will be the ones that will survive.

The incessant meddling in the private sector by know-it-all leftists on the Hill is KILLING this country. It is death by a thousand cuts!

And I, for one, am sicked and damed tired of the non-stop wailing and gnashing of teeth by these leftists about private sector businesses, while nary a fucking peep is heard from a one of them about the abuses of Democrats on the Hill who make crony capitalism a constant feature of their agenda!

Honestly, this mindless, self-destructive and idiotic attack on the so-called "rich" by the left in this country just drives me insane!

Here I am, looking for a decent damned job, and those morons of OWS and Democrats on the Hill are BOUND AND DETERMINED to see to it that the very people who could provide me with that desperately needed job are DRIVEN OUT OF BUSINESS OR OUT OF THIS COUNTRY!!!

What the fuck is WRONG with these people??? Have they NEVER, EVER read a fucking history book???

What free enterprise to you? the monopolies we have that price fix the market, like the oil industry? Or the mega corporations, like the oil industry, who inspite of making HUGE profits, now also are subsidized by the government and have been since Reagan?

How is the OWS affecting your job search? Don't you think corporations that move jobs overseas, lay-offs of teachers and other workers in the US by tea party governors and bailed out businesses create a more hostile lack of work environment?

I just don't see how the OWS enters into this.

History shows us that during the Great depression, caused by the same union of banks and investment houses the republcians created prior to the Great Depression, as they have created prior to our economic fall, when the government hired people to work on the infrastructure and to build damns that help with electricity and the Tennessee Valley Association that built electrical connections in the Appalachia mountains that we have a lot more jobs generated by business because of the people working on the government projects were spending more.

When WWII ended, Eisenhower created more government jobs for the interstate to get started and for providing more people to run the government and that in turn created more jobs in the private sector because the public sector was seeing an increase in consumerism.

The rich don't create jobs..the consumers create jobs. We NEED consumers. With the rich now laying off and the republicans on the state and national level now deleting more jobs, our economy is sagging to a stand still.

You can use all the caps you want...unless you know how an economy works, you won't be voting to make sure we GET that result and get this economy up and running.

Just for shits and giggles......

http://seekingalpha.com/article/267072-busting-the-myth-about-oil-company-profits