Employers Say Jobs Plan Won't Lead to Hiring Spur

[Divernan]

Source: New York Times

The dismal state of the economy is the main reason many companies are reluctant to hire workers, and few executives are saying that President Obama’s jobs plan — while welcome — will change their minds any time soon.

Among the business leaders attending President Obam'a jobs speech Thursday in Washington were, from left, Jeffrey R. Immelt of General Electric, Kenneth I. Chenault of American Express, Steve Case of AOL and Darlene Miller of Permac Industries.

That sentiment was echoed across numerous industries by executives in companies big and small on Friday, underscoring the challenge for the Obama administration as it tries to encourage hiring and perk up the moribund economy.

The plan failed to generate any optimism on Wall Street as the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average each fell about 2.7 percent.

As President Obama faced an uphill battle in Congress to win support even for portions of the plan, many employers dismissed the notion that any particular tax break or incentive would be persuasive. Instead, they said they tended to hire more workers or expand when the economy improved.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/business/economy/in-the-real-world-will-the-jobs-plan-make-a-difference.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

---

The entire article includes examples from business areas like oil and gas/shale fields, pharmaceuticals & e-commerce businesses.

[Divernan]

1. Companies focused on jittery consumer confidence, unstable stock market, swings in product demand.

(more from OP link)
“You still need to have the business need to hire,” said Jeffery Braverman, owner of Nutsonline, an e-commerce company in Cranford, N.J., that sells nuts and dried fruit. While a $4,000 credit could offset the cost of the company’s lowest-cost health insurance plan, he said, it would not spur him to hire someone. “Business demand is what drives hiring,” he said.

Indeed, the industries that are hiring workers now — like technology and energy — are those where business is strong, in contrast to the overall economy. Administration officials and some economists, of course, say they believe the president’s plan, if adopted, could help increase demand more broadly. The proposed payroll tax cuts for individuals should spur consumer spending and in turn, prompt companies to hire more people.

But the plan also includes incentives for companies to hire more workers, including a payroll tax cut for businesses and a $4,000 tax credit for those employers that hire people who have been out of work for six months or more.

To the extent these measures could be used, many employers said they would most likely support people whom companies were planning to hire anyway.

[Divernan]

2. Company would not get enough corporate payroll tax deduction to cover hiring even ONE more employee.

(more from OP link)

Chesapeake Energy, one of the biggest explorers of oil and gas in shale fields across the country, for example, said it had 800 positions open, and had already received tax credits for hiring the long-term unemployed.

But Michael Kehs, vice president for strategic affairs and public relations, said in an e-mail that the credit “does not drive our hiring.”

For others, the math just does not add up. Roger Tung, the chief executive of Concert Pharmaceuticals, said the company, a privately held biotechnology firm with 45 employees, would save $150,000 a year from the proposed corporate payroll tax deductions.

But that is still not enough to cover the cost of hiring even one additional employee at the Lexington, Mass., company, Mr. Tung said, once benefits and other expenses besides salary are included. He can hire, he said, only when investors become confident again and the company can raise more money.

[ixion]

3. “Business demand is what drives hiring,”

Exactly. A point that seems to be missed by some.

[Mojorabbit]

16. This is just what Iwas saying the day of the speech

We have a very small business but we don't need another employee because we have not had an increase in customers. Plus it is not worth underfunding SS in the long term.

[DCBob]

4. The funds for construction and schools repair would likely increase hiring in those sectors.

That hiring could have a ripple effect which would then convince others to begin hiring. Thats how a targeted stimulus works.

[zalinda]

18. That is a small drop in a bucket

The 9% figure that they keep mentioning, is not the true figure, it is quite likely twice that figure, if not higher. There are a lot of people who are not being counted, as they have either found a part time job, given up or became homeless. And then you have all the people who would be working, but decided to take an early retirement, or apply for disability or those who are working under the table, just to survive.

Putting a few more people in town to work, won't make up for the millions of jobs that are gone. Businesses, large or small, will just either make their current employees work longer, hire a temp, or make a deal with a foreign company that already produces a similar product. There has to be a HUGE and CONSTANT demand before things will change. Other wise, the economy will keep limping along, just as it is.

zalinda

[FarLeftFist]

20. We could put over a million construction workers back to work, THAT would have a HUGE ripple effect

They would need supplies and steel from manufacturing sectors all over the country, trucking and transport would pick up, the unemployment rate would drop fast, the supply companies would be rolling again, all those companies would then hire more employees on top of the millions of construction workers already hired, etc etc. Unemployment rate would drop, and of course all the capitalists would invest and want a piece of the action. The ripple effect could be huge just from the construction sector. Not to mention millions of more people with paychecks looking to spend in the economy.

[zalinda]

32. Maybe if it all happened at once

You would be surprised at how businesses can twist their bottom line, if they don't see something sustainable happening. For example, if there are only 3 or 4 states involved in this construction 'boom'. Stores like Lowes would just ship materials from other states to make up their dwindling inventory in the state that needs the material.

What the economy needs is a good slap in the face, just to wake up. Putting even 500 people back to work in my city of 100,000, wouldn't even make a dent in the economy. Just think, my small pretty stable city, probably has at least 5,000 people out of work, probably more, so 500 out of 5,000, is too little to make a difference.

zalinda

[FarLeftFist]

34. Those 500 construction workers would need coffee and food for their lunchbreak, tools and clothing,

workboots, etc. They would pay their bills and spend in their local stores. In turn these 500 workers may then hire people to fix their roofs, landscape their property, install pools, etc. With a steady paycheck they may purchase new cars, tv's, dinners out with the family. All of those places in turn may hire additional workers to meet the new demands.

[zalinda]

35. Except that these are CONTRACT jobs

They don't last long, and that is the problem. If a worker finally finds a job, and knows there is only 6 months of guaranteed work, he won't buy any thing he doesn't need to. I've seen workers with duct tape holding their boots together. And, of course, we also have no guarantee that the contractors will hire Americans for the jobs.

zalinda

[uncle ray]

46. my town would sure be glad to have those 500 more jobs.

and we're three times the size.

it's not going to all happen at once. you're going to get incremental progress, take it or leave it. obviously you'd rather leave it. then there's option three: tear the plan apart so you get ZERO new jobs.

[Yo_Mama]

37. The amount of constructrion/infrastructure spending proposed

Might at best put 75,000 construction workers on the job, and that not all at the same time.

The huge bulk of the money in this plan goes into FICA tax breaks for employees and companies, and it is a bad investment.

Spend a lot MORE of the plan directly on infrastructure, and you'd get better results.

[happyslug]

47. U-3 or U-6 unemployment rates, the one most cited is U-3

The US has six unemployment rates (Use to be seven but since Reagan six):

U1: Percentage of labour force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.

U2: Percentage of labour force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.

U3: Official unemployment rate per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks.

U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.

U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.

U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons (underemployment)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#United_States_Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics

U-6 is 16.2% while U3 is 9.1% in August 2011:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

[bluedigger]

5. Sounds like they understand the economy is structurally unsound.

The transition from a diverse market economy to a dependence on the financial sector as the main driver has failed, as it serves only to concentrate wealth and deplete jobs. Now if they would just "throw themselves on their swords" like the honorable men they are...

[madrchsod]

6. we need a trade policy that helps american workers not...

multinational corporations

[No Elephants]

7. Did anyone really think the plan was going to work?

[russspeakeasy]

28. For 24 hours, they were slobbering all over themselves.

:nuke: Not so much now.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. infrastructure spending will put people to work

and the spin off from the economic activity surrounding that will force companies to hire even if they don't want to. The only question is does the proposal spend enough to have a big enough effect? I think the answer is unfortunately no, it is not enough.

[Yo_Mama]

39. Not nearly enough

Also far too much money goes to relatively well-off people in this plan. A couple earning 30K together with scratch jobs, deeply affected by the economy, will get $930 dollars net. A couple earning 150K together, not deeply affected by the economy, will get $4,650.

The doing-well couple will likely put a lot of it in tax-deferred retirement accounts, and cut their income tax burden, for another net loss. The poor couple will spend it, on gas, food, clothing and utilities.

Economically speaking, this is not Keynesian stimulus. It's crazy stimulus.

To put it bluntly, the FICA cut is going to go disproportionately to those who are working and earning well. They are very unlikely to change their spending patterns due to the cut. Those that I know will do the same as they did with the last one - bank it.

The Making Work Pay tax credit was a far better way of doing things. Because that tax credit was calculated as 6.2% of worker's SS wages, capped at $400, a person getting by on $10,000 a year got the full credit. Also the credit was phased out for those with high incomes, so a person earning $100,000 a year didn't get anything. So not only does it cost less, but it returns more bang for the buck.

If Obama wants to really stimulate, the thing to do would be to increase the MWP to about $600 with a slightly lower phase out structure - start it at 40K and phase out entirely by 80K. The more of this money that goes to low-income workers, the more the money spent will circulate through economy.

Infrastructure spending is good too, but how about 200 billion?

There is no economic justification for what's being proposed as the base of the plan except, to put it bluntly, to win reelection. But it's not good for the economy and it's not good for the country and it's not good for the lower income persons in this economy.

I'm disgusted.

447 billion and at least half of it is pretty useless, and for this we strike a body blow at the SS program? Are we nuts?

[No Elephants]

45. +1

I don't believe they should cut OASDI contriubtions, period.

[fasttense]

9. When businesses and consumers are not spending only government remains.

There is no demand here in the US for products and services. Businesses and consumers are not spending and that only leaves government left to spend. But with the RepubliCON mantra of decrease government deficits or we will all die, the government is NOT spending.

So, we will continue in the so called Great Recession until one of these 3 groups decides to spend.

Obama buying into the fake government deficit crisis is really a bad sign. That means the spender of last resort has decided no more spending.

How come businesses borrow all the time and they seem to make billions off borrowed dollars but government can't?

Until we get a government that is not afraid to spend, we are stuck in the 2nd RepubliCON Great Depression.

[mother earth]

12. Well said, the way it stands we are at a stalemate.

[AndyTiedye]

23. The Trouble with Stalemates

A stalemate in chess is a tie, but in American politics, all ties go to the Republicans.

[WestSeattle2]

10. I honestly don't think hiring will occur until the fundamentals of

our economy are strengthened. Consumers are just too leery - and rightfully so. Spending will be curtailed until there is "truth in advertising" in the banking sector (assets are valued at their true value, not some pie-in-the-sky number that makes their bottom line appear positive), the too-big-to-fail banks are broken up and a few executives sent to prison, stricter oversight of financial institutions is implemented - and fully funded, and the derivatives market is fully regulated. Until these things happen, nothing will have changed. The entire system could implode again. So why take the chance? Save your money, protect yourself and your families, and wait for Congress and the White House to do the right thing.

The ball is in their court; if it takes them one year or fifty to do the right things, that's how long the economy will remain depressed and hiring stalled.

[customerserviceguy]

17. One of those fundamentals is housing prices

As long as there's a chance that the value of their houses could slip significanly lower than the amount of their mortgage balances, most homeowners will be much less likely to spend a dime more than they need to on anything besides the basics. We don't touch bottom in the real estate market until the glut of foreclosures is seen to be exhausted.

Those who cheer on the slowdown in legitimate foreclosures seem unaware of this truth. If they get their way, we'll be mired in this recession/depression for years longer.

[BeyondGeography]

11. We know, private sector...That's why we need the government to do more

:think:

[mother earth]

13. Amen to that.

[Stargazer99]

14. Doesn't any of these ignorant conservative asshats

understand they've killed the goose that laid the golden egg? How long will it take before the self-centered and selfish get it? workers need income to spend...it doesn't take much smarts to figure that out...unless you've been brain-washed by conservative blather.

[stockholmer]

24. don't forget the Republican AND Democrat asshats who laid the final foundation for all this through

passing NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagall, and ramming through the horrific Commodity Futures Modernization Act, all under the watchfully approving steerage of POTUS Clinton. The hideous W Bush administration, along with the Fed, and a deer-in-the-headlights Democratic/Republican congress then simply used these tools for their overlord banking masters to burn it all sorts of up via the folly of the credit bubble, housing bubble, 'war on terror' empiric adventurneering, and 'gift-to-the-equestrian-class' tax schemes.

It takes BOTH parties in a 2 party system to cock-up a great nation. Blame is well deserved for the entire political class (with a few exceptions, mostly solitary Democrats scattered hither and thither on what is know as the 'far-left' in the USA...... aka the center here in the EU).

[scentopine]

15. In other news, AOL, GE, American Express continue to send jobs to slave labor in Asia...

It's only a matter of time where we see a room full of abused workers and children writing software for pennies a day.

Meanwhile not one word about these companies sending millions of jobs to unregulated labor markets in Asia.

Instead, democrats are pushing more jobs out of the USA with new "free-trade" agreements.

"Free-trade" isn't free or fair. These days it's like people are paying Wall Street CEOs to keep a job.

[adhd_what_huh]

19. Nobody wants to be the first...that is why the Government is paying

to have jobs created. Then a few other private companies dip their toe into the cold water and start to wad in, then a few of the big and all of sudden we have a hiring bonanza....

HOPE IS A BIGGER DEAL THAN MANY YOU MAY THINK

[quakerboy]

26. Right.

Corporations generally prefer to stay as small as possible, they really hate growth.


Or maybe our SS contributions have nothing at all to do with hope, other than the hope to someday retire and still be able to afford to live.

And maybe jobs are created by demand.

[vets74]

21. Better they learn MACROECONOMICS. Slaves of the NORQUIST SCAM....

Modern economist Richard Koo has finally tied together results from the various schools of economics. He validates the Keynesian (jobs/bank_stability/private_debt_repair) responses to bank crises. He also validates the "normal" fine tuning (interest_rate tweak) methods of the Friedman group. Koo's econometric modeling is the basis for technically competent EU, American, and Asian macroeconomic planning.

At the same time, America is threatened politically with the Grover Norquist scam.

It important for America to avoid outright error and non-logical madness.

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

-- John Maynard Keynes

At present, the Republican Party are slaves to Grover Norquist.

His tool is not any part of macroeconomics -- all Norquist uses is a spreadsheet graphics package and its Pie Chart tool. The Norquist fantasy world imagines that government and private enterprise are engaged in a FIXED-SUM GAME war with each other.

Norquist and his paranoid benefactors believe that any government spending -- anything, at any time -- is taken away from the private sector. Government contributes nothing. Banking crises and corporate and individual debt do not exist.

Norquist's Pie Chart has one section for red and one section for blue.

This is not economic analysis. There is no "defunct economist."

There is no blundering mathematics. There is nothing to Norquist's scam but an assertion that an economy is a fixed-sum game where government is a one-way street that pays for its resources by stealing from private pockets.

This is nothing but a scam.

Norquist is a con man. He generates a simple minded, non-logical assault on government. He appeals to the John Birch Society (relabeled "Tea Party") financiers in the Koch family. At this point his scam has spread to two-thirds of the Republican Party's high-roller contributors.

Even apart from Norquist, Right Wing business thinking is often tied to an older, non-mathematical (a.k.a., "defunct" economics) fantasy that they associate with the 19th Century's version of the Austrian School of Economics. Wiki is accurate:

Austrian economists argue that mathematical models and statistics are an unreliable means of analyzing and testing economic theory.... Additionally, whereas experimental research and natural experiments are often used in mainstream economics, Austrian economists contend that testability in economics is virtually impossible since it relies on human actors who cannot be placed in a lab setting without altering their would-be actions. Austrian School economists generally advocate a laissez faire approach....

The first of these Austrians back in the 19th Century had no idea that we'd get computers.

This is an a priori system. The capitalist wing of Austrian thinking worship a "rugged individualist" "industrialist" viewpoint and then tie policy claims back to their "libertarian" assertions. Readily-available recorded data is ignored. Modern Austrian School adherents are only rarely employed by the major banks and international investment firms.

Norquist borrows propaganda lines from the Austrians. The most of that goes to microeconomics. Of course he and his supporters avoid the most enduring legacy from the Austrian School, the work of Friedrich Hayek, a Nobel Prize winner. Social investments for public health, science, education, and old age security -- all are identified as critical functions that will be short changed in laissez faire environments. Hayek's response to the Great Depression included all-out support for the New Deal.

That Red-Blue Pie Chart is another of the rightie propaganda lies that is so bad, it's not even wrong. It's not up to the level of the Birther "Born in Kenya" denial scree.

The situation following Big Bust 2008 combined specific, well-documented economic challenges. Business and household balance sheets were broken by a banking catastrophe:

-- America faced a crushed residential housing market. Declining post-Bubble prices and next to no new construction.
-- Corporate assets purchased during the Big Bubble 2003-2008 carry payment burdens far in excess of current value
-- Private households had carried $4.9-trillion in mortgage debt in 2003. At the peak of the Bubble this rose to $10.6-trillion for less than a 10% increase to the number of primary residences
-- $1.5-trillion in nonperforming business loan rollovers
-- Employment in January 2008 was still declining by more than 700,000 jobs a month
-- Price deflation had entered a classic downward spiral associated with depressions

As with 1929 and Japan in the 1990s-to-2002, this systemic collapse threatened to push America and the world society toward 10- to 15-years of a "Weekend at Bernie's."

Welcome to capitalism's greatest debacle: the Balance Sheet Earthquake.

All of pre-computer economics agreed on the severity of these Depressions. Austrians, Keynes, Friedman -- no one advised adopting psychological denial. Milton Friedman was adamant that "we are all Keynesians." Where normal profit-seeking investment behavior is damaged, the government really has to step in.

Dr. Richard Koo -- Chief Economist for Nomura Research Institute, Tokyo -- achieved a striking, singular consolidation of all the parts that work in testable ways within Political Economy. Dr. Koo differentiates the normal profit-driven modes of behavior from fear-driven behaviors. He started from a massive data bank -- all of the mid- to large-scale business records of Japan from 1990 forward -- and then combined statistical modeling with the Yin-Yang wisdoms of Asian philosophy.

Fear-driven behavior matches perfectly with Yin. The company or individual is afraid of bankruptcy, of going out of business, of losing everything. Where the whole national system falls to this Yin state, as in a banking collapse, that's the Balance Sheet Earthquake. (Technical economics term: Balance Sheet Recession.) Here's a chart from Dr. Koo -- NPL = Non-Performing Loans:



Normal times are Yang.

Post-Bubble busts are Yin. Banks that are threatened with Non-Performing Loans are cast bodily into Yin behavior. Households that are non-performing become hyper-Yin. Businesses find themselves afraid of everything -- every monthly economic stats release triggers a "double dip" panic attack.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13970982/Richard-Koo-Presentation|DR. KOO'S PROFESSIONAL POWERPOINT PRESENTATION FOR BANKERS & INVESTMENT ANALYSTS>

34 .PPT slides. Even if you've never taken a business or economics course before, this is A-1 Keep It Simple Stupid presentation work.

Go through the 34 slides and you'll know more about capitalist macroeconomics than Grover Norquist or any of the other Tax warrior mad men. For the full introductory educational treatment:

Preliminary info:

-- First: "NPL disposal" refers to Non-Performing Loans. Loans that are not getting their payments made, plus loans that are coming due but cannot qualify for a "baloon" rollover. Bad loans. The "disposal" process refers to doing massive write-offs so that the banks' balance sheets are revalued at current market values. "Mark-to-market" is the accounting term. A clean end point would force "disposal" of bad loans with auctions or distressed sales for the assets that back these non-performing loans.

In 2011 there are more than 1,000,000 residences foreclosed by banks that are not occupied. These 1,000,000+ houses are an "overhang" that simply kills the new construction housing market. Resale house values are pumped up closer to Big Bubble artificial price levels. But the cost is added unemployment: 2% to 3% nationwide.

-- Second: "GDP" refers to Gross Domestic Product. The value of all goods and services produced in a country for a given year.

-- http://media.csis.org/er/090326_koo.mp3">Audio presentation for this PowerPoint with Dr. Koo speaking slide-by-slide to an audience of Yin-to-the-max bankers.

With John Maynard Keynes, Naomi Klein, and Nassim Taleb -- a foursome.

Dr. Koo answered long-standing questions: How systemic earthquakes devalue assets and force iterative downward spirals. Why we flip from normal "Yang" economics over to a fear driven "Yin" dysfunction.

Plainly, government spending is necessary to halt the downward spiral. Koo goes to great lengths to analyze the Japanese experience in the 1990s and the 1937 back-slipping by FDR. The full treatment is in Dr. Koo's book --

The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics, Revised Edition: Lessons from Japans Great Recession

Government programs such as the Bush Administration TARP Program and the Obama Stimulus produce jobs and keep businesses functioning.

Any country suffering a Balance Sheet Earthquake would have to be hopelessly ignorant to implement a Norquist plan. Listening to House Republicans, for example. Koo's work documents in detail why this madness is functionally the same as the Hoover & Mellon Plan of 1929-1932.

[ProSense]

22. The NYT seems

to be pushing the GOP angle.

[quakerboy]

25. The hell you say!

This cannot be. Erebody knows that tax cuts make economy good.

[and-justice-for-all]

27. Those fuckers have the porfits to hire people...

I just choose not to do so for the sake of filling their coffers.

[Yo_Mama]

38. Well, if you hire people without having a way to direct their efforts to cover their payroll

Very shortly you won't have a company, or you'll have a bankrupt company.

I don't think you grasp the realities of running a business. No business that intends to stay in business hires employees because they can afford to do so. They hire an employee because the business can afford it AND the business expects to generate revenue from that hire.

Also, and let me be blunt about this, if you hire a person and you can't keep the person and have to lay the person off, it may cost you money for years due to a worse experience rating raising the business unemployment tax.

[and-justice-for-all]

44. They have the money....

they are all making profit and just refuse to hire.

I fully understand. thanks.

[ProSense]

29. Small businesses mildly hopeful on Obama jobs plan

Small businesses mildly hopeful on Obama jobs plan

<...>

"That kind of thing...would definitely be an incentive for us to pull the trigger," said Tom Schumann, general manager at E.C. Kitzel & Sons Inc., a small manufacturer in Cleveland.

<...>

"We're going to hire based on consumer demand, and until demand picks up, I'm not going to be hiring based on a tax credit," said David Hauck, co-owner of Tadpole, a toy store in Boston.

<...>

"This kind of thing gives us a little cushion," said Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore. "And we need cushion."

<...>

Wes Smith, president of E&E Manufacturing, said his company would benefit more from the part of Obama's plan that would renew tax breaks for companies that buy long-lasting equipment. Like many small businesses, E&E sells to larger companies — automakers and other users of its stamped metal products.

<...>

There are as many opinions on various aspects of the plan as there are business owners.

[Beartracks]

30. Then it's time for a new WPA.

If private enterprise is too jittery to hire, even though they LIKE the idea of consumers working and having disposable income again... then it's time to dump all the elegant bi-partisan fuzzy math and just have the government hire people to start building and repairing and maintaining this nation's infrastructure and public spaces. Eliminate the middle-men and waste and just get money directly into the pockets of workers. As these workers regain their stability, that disposable income will find its way into the economy via increased demand for goods and services, and THAT will be the signal, finally, for the private sector to start hiring even more people. The economy will begin to move forward again. A new Works Progress Administration would kickstart the economy from the ground up; because as history shows us, trickle-down doesn't work.

==========================

[Auntie Bush]

31. Stupid fools...The economy won't improve until they start hiring and

give the public some money to spend. They are cutting their nose off to spite their face...just to help defeat Obama. I hope we can give them 4 more years to regret this plan. As soon as they realize this fact...they will start hiring again...if they know what's good for them and their company.

[hack89]

49. What do you think people will be spending that money on?

If I had just been hired after a long period of unemployment the bulk of my money would be going to three places: pay off the credit cards I used to survive, try to rebuild my retirement account, and stash away cash for the next time I get laid off.

Companies know this - the question they ask themselves is "do we produce a product that people will be buying?". Some will say yes, some will say no.

If keeping the economy was as simple as hiring people, why did they fire them in the first place? If they had not fired them, by your logic demand and profits would have remained the same.

[tomg]

33. When aked why, a spokesman

replied "Because we can keep outsourcing jobs and we don't give a fuck about you. Now, we want another tax break."

[Blue_Tires]

43. thanks for saying what needed to be said

this whole meme about 'demand' and 'affordability' are just smokescreens...

[Snellius]

36. As Henry Ford said when asked why he paid his workers so much...

"Well, how could they afford to buy my cars?" This is such a stupid chicken and egg fallacy. "We can't hire until the economy picks up". But how does the economy pick up if people don't have any money to spend. This is why the government has to step in. Private enterprise cannot see past their own interests.

[hack89]

48. But what are people going to spend that money on?

If I had just been hired after a long period of unemployment the bulk of my money would be going to three places: pay off the credit cards I used to survive, try to rebuild my retirement account, and stash away cash for the next time I get laid off.

Companies know this - the question they ask themselves is "do we produce a product that people will be buying?". Some will say yes, some will say no. Their interest are your interests if you work for them - don't you hope they will make choices that will keep them in business and you employed?

[otohara]

40. When It's So Easy to Outsource/Insource

why on earth would they hire anyone in this country?

[november3rd]

41. It's Called, "DEMAND"

When consumers have money to spend, jobs are created.

they said they tended to hire more workers or expand when the economy improved.

The idea that millionaires hire workers when they have more money is less than naive. If that were true, there would never be high unemployment.

The wealth has to be redistributed NOW. Leviticus 25:10-17

[eridani]

42. Increased demand, and a lot of it, is the ONLY thing that spurs hiring

Why would a tax break make you hire someone when you don't have enough customers for the employees you have already?