So I just read an article about the jobs bill congress will have on the floor next week

[TwixVoy]

So I just read an article about the jobs bill congress will have on the floor next week.

It seems that it will be a great help to working people.

It solves the problem by.....

Wait for it.....

Giving tax credits to big business.

Well we are all saved now.



Is Reagan back in the White House again and no one told me? Isn't it pretty fu**ing clear by this point to the party that (is supposed to be) on labors side that getting more cash to big business doesn't trickle down to the average working american?

Here is an idea.

How about legislation banning outsourcing or putting MASSIVE taxes on corporations that do it?

How about legislation banning H1B Visas until the unemployment problem is solved?

How about taxing the fu** out of the CEOs who are laying people off?

How about passing the Employee Free Choice Act?

How about working to bring manufacturing back to the United States?


But no. Congress feels the solution to ever increasing unemployment is tax credits for corporations.

So anyone want to take bets when unemployment will hit 20%?

[FrenchieCat]

1. do you have a link to this job bills,

that you just panned without giving us any sight of it
to form our own opinions?

I'd like to read it myself.....
as opposed to giving your rant any credibility.

Thanks!

[TwixVoy]

3. Here

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20100204/pl_cq_politics/politics3290523_1

Although I think it's pretty sad you haven't read about it already as it's been in the news for days.

[tridim]

5. That article says the opposite of what you posted.

[TwixVoy]

7. No it doesn't

It includes some details of some miscellaneous RIDERS in the bill that don't actually CREATE jobs.

[tridim]

4. As far as I can tell, Twix just made it all up.

I posted part of a real article below.

[tridim]

2. Unrec for misinformation..

Here are the real bullet points of the plan:

* Tax credits to spur hiring and equipment purchases by small businesses

* Money to encourage construction projects by state and local governments

* Extending healthcare subsidies and unemployment payments for the jobless

* Incentives to weatherize buildings

* Aid to cash-strapped state and local governments to avoid further layoffs of teachers and other public employees

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100204/pl_nm/us_usa_congress_jobs

[TwixVoy]

6. And any of that CREATES jobs how?

"Tax credits to spur hiring and equipment purchases by small businesses"

Tax credits for small business don't do a damn thing when local consumers don't have jobs to patronize them.

"Money to encourage construction projects by state and local governments"

This will create a negligible amount of jobs compared to the millions that have been lost already/

"Extending healthcare subsidies and unemployment payments for the jobless"

This does not create jobs. It simply helps people survive because they don't have one.

" Incentives to weatherize buildings"

Incentives = tax credits. No one is going to "weatherize" buildings when they are at risk of going under.

"Aid to cash-strapped state and local governments to avoid further layoffs of teachers and other public employees"

Good for the minority of government employees. What about everyone else?


Answer these questions before you accuse me of mis-information. This bill does NOT create jobs.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TwixVoy]

9. I suggested fixes that would ACTUALLY HELP

Why are they not being passed if congress is serious about creating jobs?

Or is there something good about allowing mass outsourcing to continue?

[frazzled]

10. It creates jobs because it gives small business a tax break for hiring a worker

How the hell else do you create a job? Giving unemployed people money doesn't create any jobs. It just tides them over. Which this bill ALSO does.

Good lord, you are so keen to find fault with anything the Democrats do -- but you don't understand the first thing about the real content of the bills. It's best to study up before you post such an easily debunkable OP.

[harkadog]

12. No small business would ever hire a worker for a tax break

If that is the proposal it is so ridiculous it must have been written by someone who has never operated or been around a small business. It is costly to hire workers and they are not going to do it for a few thousand dollar tax break. They will only do it when there is demand for their services or products and they need additional workers to fulfill it over a long period of time.

[frazzled]

13. Yes it will

Businesses that want to expand but are reluctant to do so now, in this economy, can be "incentivized" to hire now ... rather than in a year or two ... by getting a per-worker tax break for the entire year up front.

Besides, this is only one component of the bill.

[harkadog]

16. A business has to allow 50% over the base salary

to hire a worker for costs associated with training and orientation to the work. So even with someone making 30,000 a year a business would have to allow 45,000$ for the first year. A tax break of 3000 - 5000 will not be worth it.

[frazzled]

17. Well, if you think no one wants to grow their business ...

you might have a point. It won't entice businesses that want to remain exactly as they are (or are going under anyway). But a lot of businesses would like to expand. Better to have it cost them $40K rather than $45K.
You watch and see.

[girl gone mad]

20. As a business owner, I have to disagree completely.

Tax breaks would not create incentive for me to hire more employees. Only increased sales and revenue would lead to more job creation in my businesses.

I can think of a couple of situations where such a scheme might be successful, but certainly those are the exception, not the norm.

[jtuck004]

24. Wow, someone who understands business. THANK YOU! n/t

[gkhouston]

28. I very much doubt it's the only way the Administration will try to create jobs.

I think it's the first way they're going to try because it's low-hanging fruit and because it's a classic Republican solution. The Republicans are so ingrained into saying "no" to everything that they're hell-bent on opposing this, too. They're gonna look like idiots going against their usual "tax break" mantra, the Dems are going to force the filibuster and some noses are going to get bloodied. Hopefully not ours.

Your point about increased sales and revenue being a driver for more job creation is indeed valid and I expect the Administration is aware of that. I think they're leading with this bowser of an idea for a political, not an economic, reason.

[scarletwoman]

18. I'm with you. What business is going to hire more workers when no one can afford to buy anything?

Small businesses can't compete with the availability of goods produced by cheap labor in China. Until trade policies are changed, U.S. consumers won't be able to afford to buy domestically produced goods.

If no one is buying, why should small businesses hire more labor? No matter how many tax breaks they get.

"Free Trade" globalism has destroyed our economic sovereignty.

Unfettered capitalism is bleeding us dry.

sw

[lib2DaBone]

22. Still a very weak stop-gap bill

tax breaks are like "pushing on a string". If you do not have a job.. a tax credit means nothing.

"DEMAND" drives the economy from the bottom up. Massive infrastructure spending with paying jobs right away translates into demand and more hiring.

Washington has been brainwashed by trickle-down right-wing economic thievery for so long.. they wouldn't know a strong economy if it jumped up and bit them.

[dmallind]

11. Well...

How about legislation banning outsourcing or putting MASSIVE taxes on corporations that do it?
---Protectionism doesn't work. There is not that huge a gap between foreign companies producing in other countries and foreign companies producing in the US. NOt only would we lose much of that in return, but we'd lose much of our exports to those countries if we try protectionist/isolationist policies.

How about legislation banning H1B Visas until the unemployment problem is solved?
---H1B visas are down, already limited, and less annually than 1/4 of the number of unemployment claims started in any given week

How about taxing the fu** out of the CEOs who are laying people off?
---Whether they are laying people off or not, I am more than fine with increasing top rate tax rates. This is a workable idea that should not have a meaningful downside form a societal or economic POV.

How about passing the Employee Free Choice Act?
---Union representation is not a major factor in long term job security overall, and certainly the mechanism with which to gain it is not. Unions have lost members faster than the US has lost jobs

How about working to bring manufacturing back to the United States?
---We remain the world's #1 manufacturer by far, and our %age of global output is down not all that much, and exclsuively due to China's sudden willingness in the last twenty years to export products. It's not that we produce less (we produce more than 20 years ago in constant dollars) it's that they produce much much more, and percentages are a zero sum game. The reduction in %age of GDP in manufacturing is much more due to increase in health care costs than decrease in manufacturing. What we produce has changed, and how we produce has changed. These are painful, but the alternative is too. Underwear sewn by US union-scale labor would be astronomically expensive. Nobody would buy it compared to imports, and if we banned imports see the answer about protectionism....

[seabeckind]

14. Gotta agree with twix here

You say protectionism doesn't work. Nice corporate talking point but please explain why you have this position. Please tell me why if we are number 1 in manufacturing I don't see "Made in America" tags on stuff in stores?

There is only one washing machine made in the US and that is a top loader. Why, when I am looking for appliances do I see nothing but ones made elsewhere? Even the washing machine made in the US isn't available in any of the stores I visit.

Why is there only one brand of shoe made in the US and that is just a few models?

Why do we not have a textile industry anymore? Why no electronics?

And, lest we forget, it was in the 80's manufacturing was redefined to include making hamburgers.

Definitely got to agree with twix. It isn't tax breaks that makes jobs. Most of the major corporations don't pay taxes now -- and in fact get a tax break to move offshore.

That small transmission business that creates jobs does it to support the 3000 workers in the appliance factory down the road. Without that he has no paying customers.

The reason we have no manufacturing is that our "american" corporations didn't reinvest in their own core business in this country. When the refrigerator maker got a few bucks ahead they didn't upgrade their factory in Bloomington, Indiana, they invested in a different factory in Mexico. And got a tax break to do it.

[dmallind]

19. Oh dear

You say protectionism doesn't work. Nice corporate talking point but please explain why you have this position. Please tell me why if we are number 1 in manufacturing I don't see "Made in America" tags on stuff in stores?
---Because of the fricking obvious reason that what we make is not cheap ass retail crap. Do you shop for aircraft, for enterprise software, for engineered parts, for any high cost high tech products all that often? Do you know the term observer bias?


There is only one washing machine made in the US and that is a top loader. Why, when I am looking for appliances do I see nothing but ones made elsewhere? Even the washing machine made in the US isn't available in any of the stores I visit.
---Well of course that means we don't make anything right? Washing machines cost $200-$1000 a pop. Agricultural tractors cost $150,000-$2,000,0000, Commercial aircraft cost millions. Why don't they count?

Why is there only one brand of shoe made in the US and that is just a few models?
---Low end retail crap again. See above.

Why do we not have a textile industry anymore? Why no electronics?
---A) ditto b) we sell plenty of electronics outside consumer crap

And, lest we forget, it was in the 80's manufacturing was redefined to include making hamburgers.
---Which would be relevant if manufacturing numbers were not UN and WTO derived based on exactly equal defintions across countries and where we are way way way above anywhere else

Definitely got to agree with twix. It isn't tax breaks that makes jobs. Most of the major corporations don't pay taxes now -- and in fact get a tax break to move offshore.
--I take no position on tax breaks. Strawman =fail

That small transmission business that creates jobs does it to support the 3000 workers in the appliance factory down the road. Without that he has no paying customers.
---Relevance? We are the biggest manufacturer by far still. Plenty of US companies support other US companies AND global customers.

The reason we have no manufacturing is that our "american" corporations didn't reinvest in their own core business in this country. When the refrigerator maker got a few bucks ahead they didn't upgrade their factory in Bloomington, Indiana, they invested in a different factory in Mexico. And got a tax break to do it.
--The "reason" we have "no manufacturing" is a stupid preconceived idiocy with no basis in reality. We have about 50% more manufacturing output than the next highest nation, using a consistent definition and a world body's analysis.

Try facts not moronic gut-feel bias next time.

[girl gone mad]

21. bzzt.

Because of the fricking obvious reason that what we make is not cheap ass retail crap. Do you shop for aircraft, for enterprise software, for engineered parts, for any high cost high tech products all that often? Do you know the term observer bias?

Counting heavy equipment, aircraft, high-tech machinery, etc. is a scam, because 99% of the parts can still be made overseas, yet as long as a few screws are added on our soil, they count the total as being manufactured here. It's bogus.

Before you accuse others of being "moronic", you might want to make sure you understand what you're talking about.

[laughingliberal]

25. +1 nt

[dmallind]

33. And your source for this is....?

Yes manufacturers import parts. They also export parts for use in foreign assembly. You include that too, right? You think nothing from the US is in Airbus planes, or BMW motorcycles? I can send you drawings for components used on both if you like, as well as Ducati, Triumph, even Rolls Royce. I have been working in maniufcaturing supply chain and operations for 20 years. I have bought from all over the world and sold to all over theworld, but always always always at companies that make something here. I think I know what I'm talking about here. And it's not just anecdotal - we can see from real data that dollar outoput manufactured here - measured the same way - is up in the last 20 years. Or lemme guess you think it's all a conspiracy by "banksters" and it doesn't really happen because you can rattle off the names of a few closed plants?

[jtuck004]

26. But our economy mostly isn't big airplanes, enterprise software

that has 26,000 users and a thousand servers (part of that was written overseas, btw - I found out when I worked with it), huge expensive tractors that, for the most part, wind up on really large factory farms (sometimes on smaller ones, till the rains don't come and they are sold at auction).

Those are important as you stated, but our country runs on "consumer crap" - the thousands of little shoe stores, the radiator shops, the mechanic. On tens of thousands of little farmers that grew food, (now replaced by big farms who produce corn, soybeans, and crowded cows at the economies of scale that only a Cargill can make happen. The profit from such businesses goes into far fewer pockets than it used to, not to mention what the Finance sector, and the Industrial War Machine has cost us. Yes, some manufacturers do have customers overseas. For example, China, where roughly 1 in 100 U.S. manufacturers sell anything. Oh, dang, China surpassed the U.S. in auto sales in 2009, while we were deleting human beings - I mean jobs - no, I mean human beings. And those cars weren't made here.

Did we, as consumers, do ourselves in? Sure, but it's not like there was a real choice. As wages were being depressed, people were nearly forced into buying the very products that were, and are, our undoing. I am honestly not sure things could have happened any other way - what kind of economy could afford to just sit around and run inside its own borders? Our really good steel is nearly all out of the ground, and the oil we fly and drive with, fertilize our plants with, and eat is 70% out of our control. We have been teaching people that progress=consumption for how many years? (Out of this discussion, but maybe we need to look for different "cheese"? It may be the way of life we knew is gone, and everyone needs to learn how to make solar panels and garden till we figure out what direction to go in the future.) Hope we get single-payer soon, but I am not holding my breath.

You are 100% right, our companies did not re-invest in themselves. But the smaller ones just got eaten up by the financing of the bigger ones, who saw the handwriting on the wall, and outsourced. Those who didn't got the same fate as many of the little stores who watched a Walmart go up a few blocks away. And you were extremely perceptive - we do some big things very, very well. But there is competition out there. (It strikes me that our biggest mistake may have been the shot in the imagination we gave other countries, and our underestimating how powerful that would be for them.)

As of the revised employment figures today, we are in much worse shape than anyone really thought. And that is because no one is buying the "consumer crap". We may never get that economy back. And we won't do it with big airplanes, tractors, and software partly written in India.

[dmallind]

31. Again - where was I wrong on the FACTS?

We produce more constant $$ output in mfg that we did 20 years ago. Fact.

Our economy runs on consumer crap sure - but that does not mean we have to manufacture it. We make much more money from the planes and tractors and software etc than we would from underwear and coffeecups.

Yes a lot of labor-intensive manufacturing is gone. But we cannot pay people $20 an hour to hand make coffee cups and sell them when it's a commodity market and mass-produced automated and/or low cost labor alternatives are a tenth of the price. And if we close the borders and say no more coffee cups from Malaysia, that way lies isolationism and stagnation.

[jtuck004]

36. Your facts are right on, as far as I can tell from looking at the

Fed and WTO sites, and a little consultation with "The Google".

The constant dollar output (productivity) is greater, no question. But for the past 10 years the decrease in manufacturing employment is alarming (http://www.uschina.org/public/documents/2006/09/us-manufacturing.pdf - check the chart on page 2). So I think the problem may be imprecision in what people are saying.

The real problem - we make more, but it is a declining percentage of the gross domestic product, and includes a huge decrease in jobs. Less worker pay = less soap, food, clothing to be purchased, etc. I do think you are discounting the effect of all that consumer crap on our economy too much, because those purchases comprise a much bigger part of our domestic economy. You are correct in that we don't have to manufacture it, but then the person who is paid for the job does not spend their money here, and the profit goes to just a few. including management and stockholders. While we make more missiles, great technology, and big tractors, we may wind up with food and job riots like we hear about in France on our own streets sooner than we think.

I think you do a service in this post by making it obvious that we need to quit whining about loss of manufacturing output (which is a myth) and focusing on the decrease in manufacturing employment. Which is partly why I think we need a real revolution in ideas for what jobs will look like in the future, training and re-training people for a different era.

Now I gotta go put some wood in the stove, it's getting chilly ;)

[seabeckind]

29. Your response points out the corporate viewpoint

Corporations are being asked how to make jobs. The problem is that corporations aren't in the jobs business, they're in the profit business. And they make more profit by not giving jobs or giving the lowest paying ones they can.

I grew up in a steel town with probably 10 mills and support facilities within 20 miles. These plants directly employed thousands of workers. There were foundries that got steel from the rolling mills and made stampings for heating vents, appliance parts. Those 10 mills fed the economy of a few hundred thousand. There's one plant left today doing some specialty steel, no foundries. The big employer there now is a Walmart distribution center. Of course the taxpayer had to give them the land (ain't eminent domain great?) and widen the road but...

When I started my family in Indy there were factories supporting the auto industry all over the city, Western Electric had a big plant, RCA had a plant, there was a big Delco parts plant in Anderson. All of these gradually closed over the years as the jobs were shipped to Mexico or some other country. Oh sure, Isuzu opened a plant up the road and that helped a bit. Lilly is doing ok but a lot of their drugs aren't made there anymore, they come from china.

This is the story all over the US. You say that's cheap retail crap... True, but that's what makes jobs.

As far as airplanes? You might do a little research into where the components for that 787 come from.

[dmallind]

30. No it points out the facts

Where was I factually in error?

Oh and some of those components come from about 200' from my desk for a start. Same as components for all kinds of agricultural, lawn/garden, outdoor equipment, recreational vehicles, etc.

[seabeckind]

34. I didn't say you were in error

I was trying to make the point that we have a difference in focus. Companies make a lot of money on big ticket items but there aren't many of those companies. Jobs are a different goal. The key to a healthy economy is a strong middle class with a lot of people working. This multitude then needs a lot of support businesses.

As an analogy, assume you are a film maker. There might be two different goals, one is to make money, the other is to get your message to as many people as possible. In the first case you might charge $20 a ticket and show the film to a small number of people. In the second case you might charge $2 a ticket.

From a macro viewpoint the second case is better for the overall economy because it enriches many more people. It needs transportation support, babysitters, etc. That was FDR's solution.

And to those who say that those jobs are gone forever, I say bullshit. They are gone because the corporations want them to be gone. Their goal is to make as much profit as possible, not provide the most jobs they can.

Obama and our gov't must do what FDR did -- change the focus.

[NNN0LHI]

35. Japans protectionist/isolationist policies seem to work for them. Why is that?

http://autos.aol.com/article/japan-bias

Why Don't We Sell More Cars In Japan?

Chevrolet Sells 1 Vehicle In Japan For Every 400 Toyotas In America

Posted: Oct, 24 2009

In sports as in international trade, it’s the raw figures in the record books that can be the toughest to swallow.

Imagine the Philadelphia Phillies annihilating the Tampa Bay Rays 4,000 to 3 in the final game of the 2008 World Series, and you have something like the U.S. automakers’ success rate in breaking into the Japanese and Korean markets.

It is as though the Arizona Cardinals fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers last February without rushing more than a couple yards or Venus or Serena Williams dropped a U.S. Open match without returning a single serve.

In August, only 192 Fords and 63 Chevrolets and were sold in Japan, roughly the same number as a year earlier, according to the Japanese Association of Automobile Importers. And over the last decade, things have actually gotten worse: The figures were 359 for Ford and 793 for Chevrolet in August 1999.

In 2008, Chevrolet exported exactly one vehicle to Japan for every 400 Toyotas exported to the U.S. Throw in the Japanese firm’s production at its U.S. transplants, and the ratio is even more lopsided: Chevrolet sold one vehicle in Japan for every 1,300 Toyotas sold in the U.S.

Ford sold about 2,500 vehicles in Korea last year, compared to nearly 330,000 Hyundai and Kia vehicles imported to the U.S.

Variations in consumer tastes alone can’t possibly account for differences of that magnitude, even though Asian consumers tend to buy smaller cars than Americans do, critics of U.S. trade policy say. Nor do differences in U.S. and Asian quality levels, when there are any.

While Korea and Japan no longer directly restrict U.S. imports, they do put up barriers to them, said Chris Vitale, president of a Michigan-based group, FairImage.org, which promotes open trade in the auto industry.

"For all intents and purposes, the Japanese market is closed to everyone," Vitale said. "No one gets a foothold."

[Better Believe It]

15. You'll have to wait for 60 liberal Democrats to be elected to the Senate .... check back in 2016 or

2028 or 2064 or 2238.

Nothing can be accomplished so long as the Republicans maintain their 41 vote control of the United States Senate.

Those darn off the Senate floor fake Republican filibusters!

The only good thing about them filibusters is they give some Democrats an excuse for inaction!

I mean, we really don't expect the Democratic Senate majority to take control of the Senate, do we?

[MadBadger]

23. Is this opposite day?

[defendandprotect]

27. How about knocking out the "trade agreements" which should be called the ...

"Harvesting Slave Labor" agreements!!



How about legislation banning outsourcing or putting MASSIVE taxes on corporations that do it?

How about legislation banning H1B Visas until the unemployment problem is solved?

How about taxing the fu** out of the CEOs who are laying people off?

How about passing the Employee Free Choice Act?

How about working to bring manufacturing back to the United States?

NICE POST!!

[Mari333]

32. OH the Trickle down Reagan ideas again???

and we will be pissed on YET AGAIN

Im sure INDIA and CHINA are smiling.