Hillary: 'Don't Let Anybody Tell You' That 'Businesses Create Jobs' | Hacker News Reader

Hillary: 'Don't Let Anybody Tell You' That 'Businesses Create Jobs'

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14 pointsddispaltro11 comments

"It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages" - Henry Ford

follow up reading: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchfork...

Nick Hanausr says much the same thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g

Here is an excerpt from the Atlantic:

"Anyone who's ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalist's course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it. In this sense, calling ourselves job creators isn't just inaccurate, it's disingenuous."

"That's why our current policies are so upside down. When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/here-is-...

George McGovern (liberal politician who turned entrepreneur) wrote a great piece about his experience in business after politics. Maybe Hillary should read it (or start a business, since she has no private sector background).

"In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business, especially during a recession of the kind that hit New England just as I was acquiring the inn's 43-year leasehold. I also wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender."

A Politician's Dream Is a Businessman's Nightmare (1992)

http://digital.library.ucla.edu/websites/2008_993_056/Politi...

"Maybe Hillary should read it (or start a business, since she has no private sector background)."

Actually, she did have private sector experience early in her career. She was a partner at the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas (which famously represented the Madison Guaranty Bank, that was involved with the Whitewater scandal).

She also sat on several corporate boards:

"...she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–1992), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–1992) and Lafarge (1990–1992). TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law. Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to the board. Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices, was largely unsuccessful in a campaign for more women to be added to the company's management, and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton

Can someone give me the real skinny on corporate board seats? I hear they are basically the rich people equivalent of a blow-off class in the University of Soft Knocks, but few people who sit on boards seem to directly address this question.

That's a really astounding statement. Basically, I think there are only two types of employers. Businesses and government. When government is the employer your salary is paid out of taxes. Those taxes are taken from the economy. So, even if no businesses ever hired anybody, and say, worked only with robots, they would still be the ones creating the economic growth necessary to provide government jobs.

I guess, with the power to print money, the government could eliminate taxes and just print money to pay everyone. But I wonder what the dollar would be worth in such a situation. I don't think much at all. Then again, I guess there'd be nothing to buy with them either.

You should look up Modern Monetary Theory. The Grace Commission said in the 80s that most of our income tax money just goes towards servicing the debt. In polities that can print their own money taxes are a way to manage inflation and reduce spending power of certain sectors of the economy.

On the other hand austerity for polities that cant print their own currency can be used as an economic weapon, such as how it disabled the governments of south Europe, who got a raw deal joining the euro and losing the ability to print their own money.

Elasticity can be a good feature of a money supply. Having 21 million bitcoins chasing an ever increasing amount of goods and services (and other fiat currencies) will make people hoard them / "save" them which will lead to banks which will lend derivative M2 money based on reserves which will lead to small banking instability which will lead to lenders of last resort and fractional reserve requirements by their jurisdictions which will lead to Gresham's law kicking in and the derivative money driving the bitcoins even more out of circulation which will go right back to the system we have now.

Customer demand creates jobs. Giving money to profitable businesses doesn't do anything because they are already capable of hiring more but don't. Giving money to consumers works better because the money is spent and creates demand for labour.

It's a statement made in the context of supply-side economic policy.

Some people believe that giving money to businesses via tax reductions will result in more hiring and economic activity. This stuff is typically attributed to President Reagan.

I've never understood why Clinton gets credit for the speculative boom during his term, but never gets blamed for the subsequent and inevitable bust. That is one of the finest pieces of political spin in recent history.

For most of us debating politics is like debating astronomy - it can be fun to spin one sided theories but at the end of the day we can't make much of a difference, so no sense getting all worked up about who said what and wasting hours in political debates online. The best thing you can do is to educate yourself, which means listening to others and researching data.

The best way to affect the world is to do something yourself, not debate what others will do.

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