Creationism

Ponder for a moment with me the concept of “job creation”—what does that pithy little phrase mean exactly? Now, put it into context. Recall for a brief instant the promises of what the stimulus bill has promised to do vis-à-vis creation. It’s hard I know to nail down what the promise was exactly. It was “create three million new jobs,” the first time around. Then it was 3.5 million. Then it was “as many as five million.” But recently it has suddenly morphed into something more squishy and not as tough to really do. Now the terminology is “create or preserve somewhere between two and three million jobs.”

Notice the little deletion of the adjective, “new”? Notice the verb is now a compound verb that offers an arguably easier accomplishment—create, which is tough and preserve, which is unmeasurable. It is easy to see a newly created job. That’s one that didn’t exist before. But, how is one to know if the job they have is the regular old job they always had or one of the special category of “stimulus-preserved” jobs?

Maybe the basic question to understand this is: can government actually “create” a job? Where do jobs really come from? Flashback in history and take a look at FDR’s creativity in the job market. You’ll find a couple of programs called Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps. Did you create a job, if you pick up some unemployed folks at the courthouse square and haul them out to the woods to cut a trail through to a meadow and put up a couple of picnic benches and an outhouse? Did the work produce something for the GDP? Can you find a product at the end of the labor other than that the time was filled and you sort of “earned” your government stipend?

The way jobs get created is a free enterprise business owner has a successful product; something the consumer wants or needs that is priced right, makes a profit for the business and satisfies the customer. If the demand for the product is high, the business owner will need to produce more of it, and will hire more workers. Those are created jobs. The business will need more raw materials which will create demand in other companies to supply those input items. That will create more jobs. These jobs didn’t exist, but now they will. They create profit and company growth. They fuel the worker’s demands on the market for product they can buy with their wages. The economy spirals upward.

Is that what the trillion dollar stimulus is going to do? It is impossible to pick the thing up and not find useless expenditures for political gain on every page. It is pork of the purest form, veritable loin chops cut fat for the benefit of the congress-critters who will point to it in the next election. It is payback for favorites and purchase of votes.

Will pouring money into “shovel-ready” projects—that’s a euphemism for stuff that wasn’t high enough priority to get funded in a needs-based free-market economy—actually create real jobs? Will those jobs actually be new jobs or will they go to existing construction companies who have the skilled work force and experience to accomplish them? Are these in the “preserved” category? Do these projects contribute to the GDP at any time in the foreseeable future?

How will the brokerage employee, the computer programmer, and the auto assembly technician react when pointed to these work-boots and bull-dozer jobs which they have no experience to assume nor desire to take? Nope, no thanks.

Jobs get created in a growing economy by private enterprise which is designed to make a profit. Add an overlay of restrictive government regulations, directives for environmental “green” goal-setting regardless of market, and some good old-fashioned political pandering by politicians and you don’t get creationism in the job market. You get a Five-Year Plan for a centrally planned economy—which history has amply demonstrated will always fail.

Anyone who has run a business, managed a project or faced a payroll day can explain that to you. Government simply cannot “create” a job. Wishing and hoping will not make it so.