In the Beginning, There Were Jobs
If you have been following politics for, I don’t know, the
last four years or so then you will know that unemployment and the economy is
the primary issue among both voters and politicians. It has also spurred a lot
of discussion, debate and stinging rhetoric across party lines. All you have to
do is listen to one of Obama’s dog and pony shows or one Republican debate[1]. I have done both. I try to keep up on
what the President says because I think it’s important. I watch the Republican
debates primarily for the drinking game. Here are the rules. Take a drink every
time one of the following happens:
- A candidate breaches their time limit
- Another candidate calls someone out for breaching time
limit
- Mitt Romney sounds like a cartoon character
- Newt Gingrich says something crass
- Rick Perry’s point makes you want to piss on your TV
- You think to yourself “I wish Ron Paul was drunk at my
family reunion”
- The moderator ignores John Huntsman (I wrote this before
he dropped out)
- Rick Santorum gives Jerry Sandusky-esque crooked pedophile
smile
Oh, did I mention you will get shit blasted drunk while
playing this game. Nevertheless, getting Americans back to work is the
paramount issue and will continue to be leading up to and through the election
this fall. I think the two primary contributors to this blog would agree. They
are smart, talented, educated and under-employed. Oh, they’re also raging
drunks and dickheads, which is the other shared similarity between them and most
Americans under 30 years old. So, each party and every politician
promises to do one simple thing: create jobs.
To these people I have a simple question; have you ever seen
a job created? I have. I had the pleasure to tour a job factory in suburban St.
Louis recently. It really is quite a sight. The first thing that I noticed was
how clean and industrial the plant was. Foremen roam the factory floor
inspecting machines with unsurpassed technology. Just the robotics involved
would make your head spin. Machines move swiftly and precisely. This factory
creates jobs at a rate of about 300 per hour, one of the most efficient in the
US. The output is sublime; perfect, symmetrical, strong and identical jobs, one
by one rolling off the assembly line. Although, you can’t help but notice that
most of the machines are assembled from imported parts.
Ok, so you get the point. You can’t create a job. It’s not a
product, fuckers. So, is there a recipe for jobs?
Corn on the Job
- 1 cup infrastructure spending - 2 cups de-regulation
- ¼ cup tax cuts
- ¾ cup education reform
- ¼ cup housing assistance
- Tbsp of kill everyone on wall street
- Tsp nutmeg[2]
Mix thoroughly and bake at hotly contested debates in house
and senate for 8 years. Let rest for an entire election year. Serves 230-240
million people.
I think I’ve made my point on that. My larger point is this;
this recession sucks, and it’s going to continue to suck and it would be nice
for one of these spineless cocksuckers to just stand up and say that instead of
trying to sell Americans on this creationist theory of jobs.
Warning: this is where I get serious
Consider that between 2007 and the third quarter of 2011 GDP
went from $13.2 trillion[3] to $15.2 trillion[4]. So, GDP has rebounded and actually
increased from highs at the start of the recession. Meanwhile, unemployment
went from 5% to 8.5%[5] (and a high of nearly 10% in 2009). The
current unemployment rate doesn’t even consider those who have stopped looking
for jobs. What does this mean? It means that our output has increased while
more people are out of work (as a percentage of the work force). Simply, we are
more efficient. Ok, so GDP includes government spending. Even net of government
spending GDP has essentially been flat. So basically, with that many more
people out of work we produce the same amount of goods and services. The reason
is pretty simple; less people working harder, technology and the collapse of
housing and the industries that support it.
As typical Americans we think we can just rebound
immediately. After all, we need everything to happen so quickly. We need our
food prepared in 60 seconds and thrown at us through our car windows while we
speed down the highway. We (men) continually get pissed when some chick doesn’t
want to touch our genitals the first night we meet them. The DMV has been
ridiculed for years because of wait times. Ever been in line at the grocery
store and someone goes to pay with a check? I’ve seen less fury in a Rage
Against the Machine mosh pit[6]. So, our culture is that we want instant
gratification. But it won’t happen. Harvard economists Reinhart and Rogoff
wrote a great book called “This Time is Different”. It scrubbed 800 years of
data and came to a simple conclusion: deep recessions caused by a financial
crisis are protracted. While you can’t read the whole book you can read their
research abstract here http://www.economics.harvard.edu/files/faculty/51_This_Time_Is_Different.pdf
As far as jobs goes, look at this chart
You can see that it takes a long time for jobs to recover.
Just the last downturn (2001-2005) it took nearly 48 months to return to
pre-recession levels. And that wasn’t nearly as deep or severe as this
downturn. While this chart is a little dated you can see that in 2010 we
weren’t even close to our way back. Even if it only took 48 months like the
last time we would still be talking 2012. So, what’s the message. We still have
years to go until we return to where we were. Lest we forget how dire
the economic and financial calamity we were in (are in) was (is).
So, how do you create a job? The answer is simple but making
it happen is hard. Supply and demand is the backbone of economics. So, to
create jobs you need a product that is in demand. Suggesting that this is easy
or that you can just “create” them is ridiculous. That’s like saying “to get
rich all I need to do is think of the next facebook”. Well, that’s going to
take a great idea, skills, a lot of hard work and some luck. So how will the
politicians make what America is selling attractive? The government already
pushed housing as the “American product” and look where that got us. What we
need is someone to want our goods, whether it is manufactured products,
education, technology or our intellectual capital. So instead of just saying “I
can create a job”, let’s start talking about how we can utilize our strengths
to advance our economy forward. In the age of globalization, which isn’t going
away, this has to include the rest of the world. Other capitalist societies are
not our economic enemies; they are our key to advancement. Too bad we can’t
export arrogance and egotism. Then maybe 13 million people could get a ham
sandwich without giving a hand job.
-Written by Josh
[2] Every fucking time I want to make something
it has nutmeg in it. Who the fuck has nutmeg laying around? Screw you Rachel
Ray
[3] Moody’s Analytics- National economic
statistics report
[4] 3Q11 revised GDP report: http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
[6] HFSTival 2000 was craaaaaazy
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