Who do you trust on job creation?
Let’s talk about something other than the embassy riots for a change.
The other day a Rasmussen poll asked the question “Who do you trust more on job creation?” The results were 47 Obama to 45 Romney
Sounds crazy, but it’s really not, IMHO.
Lots of people think that in tough economic times it’s the government that can—and should—create jobs, a la the alphabet soup of the FDR years. And not all these people are dumb, by any means; some actually pay attention to history, because that’s the history we all learned, isn’t it? FDR’s programs ended the Depression?
Whether it’s true or not, that is. Recent revisionist histories such as Amity Shlaes’ are just that, recent and revisionist. Before then, the idea that the New Deal may have hurt as much as it helped was a minority position, and certainly not taught in most schools.
As for the survey, I would rather they’d have asked “Which candidate would be better at creating a business climate that favors job creation by private business?” I have a feeling the answer might have been quite different.
I don’t have access to the full results of the poll, but the wording of the questions was also interesting. As pollsters go, Rasmussen is one of the more fair, but I can still see problems with this, “Whom do you trust more on the issue of job creation””President Obama or Mitt Romney?” It would have been a lot better to equalized the names somewhat: “Barack Obama or Mitt Romney” (leaving out the president’s title, which gives him extra gravitas and authority), and varied the order, too.
In the US, we call it The Great Depression; it started in ’29, and ended with WWII. In other words, no government program was uniquely responsible for ending it. Fact.
In Europe, they call it a depression. One of many. It didn’t last. It was gone well before the hostilities even leading up to WWII. Fact.
It took something like 70 years before someone “noticed” that disparity in economic results. We call the people that “noticed” the disparity, and started to objectively analyze that difference in national perspectives, “revisionists”.
To put it quite plainly: the policies of FDR and the Democrats did not alleviate, but rather extended, the crash of the market in late 1929.
FDR and the interventionist policies created what came to be known as the “great” depression.
My grandparents, solid Democrats, loved FDR. He “saved” the country.
Uh, no.
His ill-advised economic interventionism almost destroyed the country …it was only the “quirk” of the historic timing of extra-domestic events that rescued his sorry ass from going down as the pathetic inglorious bastard that his devastating policies would have justly labeled him with.
…and it’s taken Just.This.Long to start to understand that. And only barely, even now. There’s an entire party (and too much of another) that still doesn’t accept the truth of that historical judgment.
Those who do not understand history, are doomed to repeat it.
As noted in the “davisbr Says” comment, WWII ended the depression — not the alphabet soup of government programs — higher taxes didn’t help either. In addition to Amity Schlaes’ “The Forgotten Man”, another recommended “revisionist” book on the New Deal is Jim Powell’s “FDR’s Folly”, subtitled: “How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression”.
The Democrats have had ample time and authority to aid economic recovery. Their policies have demonstrated that throwing borrowed money at the problem and increasing both regulation and uncertainty will not help instill confidence in the private sector where employment and wealth are created.
It is sad that so many supposedly educated people buy the false argument that politicians of either party can legislate prosperity through redistribution and central planning. All that they can really do is not throw obstacles in the way of people’s personal incentive.
Basically, the question is: If the train is stopped and you want to get it moving, would it be better to
a)Get a bunch of people to push on the train, or
b)Take off the brakes
You find revisionists in strange places. I saw a study by two economists at UC Berkley who claimed Rosevelt’s policies prolonged the depression by 7 years.
I think there seems to be a contingent of 47% of the nation that will agree to one political answer no matter the question. It’s up to about 5% of the voters to decide the fate of the nation. Scary.
Anyone who cites FDR’s record of job creation has not looked at those jobs. They were manual labor performed for tiny wages. Many of them required that men leave their homes and live in communal barracks. An exception, of course, were the government bureaucrats, hired to man all of the expanded bureaucracy that plagues us still today.
My older cousins were put to work by FDR. They were in the CCC; a program for the youth. They lived in military style barracks, wore semi-military uniforms. They were fed, housed and sent a few cents/month home. Is that what folks want for their kids now? Obama can do that–and probably will if he gets another term.
Not many people would do those WPA manual labor jobs today. Certainly no youth would join the CCC. In fact, I read that plenty of manual labor jobs are going vacant. Many of those that are not vacant, are performed by immigrants; illegal or otherwise. (I recently moved to SoCal. Nearly, every middle-class home has its yard guys. The yard trucks, some of them junk, but many surprisingly upscale, swarm through the neighborhoods. Every yard guy is a Mexican. Maybe Salvadoran.)
It is reported that also going vacant are many skilled labor jobs. People are simply not willing to serve the apprenticeships to learn the crafts needed in industry. Nor are many willing to relocate to where the jobs are. Not when 99 weeks of unemployment pay is available.
Excellent analogy, david foster. Businesses are afraid to hire as a direct result of congressional legislation and administrative policy and rhetoric.
Ray,
I read an UCLA study that showed FDR prolonged the Depression by 7 years. He did that primarly via the minimum wage, he overpriced labor.
WW2 ended the Depression by taking FDR’s focus from the economy, in my view. I.e., it wasn’t government spending that fixed things, but the fact that the government was focused on war (something it understands) and not the economy (something it doesn’t understand, particularly the likes of FDR).
Oh, and you can check the “overpriced labor” point via folklore; Depression era people often recall that it “wasn’t bad” for those who had work. Overpricing labor should have that result: many will be out of work, those who have it will do fine.
Another thing, why would any depression last so long? The Great Depression lastest way too long, the initial bad investments that caused it should have been sorted out by the market process, and prosperity returned. The length of it alone suggest something odd was prolonging it.
2 of my uncles were in the CCC before joining up after 12/7/41. My dad turned moonshiner until Pearl Harbor.
“Not many people would do those WPA manual labor jobs today. Certainly no youth would join the CCC. In fact, I read that plenty of manual labor jobs are going vacant. Many of those that are not vacant, are performed by immigrants; illegal or otherwise.”
Most of today’s unemployed young ‘men’ would not be willing to get dirt under their fingernails or break a sweat. Granted a 2nd term, BHO will turn them into highly paid goon squads canvasing the countryside looking for the un-PC.
We can never forget the role of the environmental movement that is a major element of big government, central planning that keeps our economy in a straight jacket. The EPA and Endangered Species Act began as noble ideas to do a better job of looking after our resources of air, water, and wild things. It has morphed into a central planning mechanism that will not be satisfied until we are once again riding horses to work and cooking over tiny campfires.
Read Robert Zubrin’s piece about how the EPA has blocked growth of the economy.
http://tinyurl.com/8ftdd56
Obama and all his minions either believe that radical environmentalism is good or recognize that it provides the perfect vehicle for pushing big government and central planning. Either way, it has been and continues to be disastrous for economic growth in this country.
Many times I have pointed out that every modern economy floats on a sea of energy. There is nothing that is not affected by the use of energy. Want food – it takes energy to produce it and get it to market. Shelter, heat, lights, computers, cell phones, transportation, and on and on – all depend on energy. Every time energy prices go up it is a tax on the entire economy. The transfer of trillion$ of dollars from our economy to OPEC is one of the scandals of our times. Read what Zubrin has to say about that. Letting the world become dependent on Middle Eastern oil has been one of the strategic blunders of modern times. It has provided the Islamic countries with far more power than they could ever gain through their own efforts. In fact, the Middle Eastern mess we’re in is directly related to it.
I grew up in a town with a CCC camp on the outskirts. Most of the workers were young toughs off the streets of Denver, Kansas City, Omaha, Chicago and other places. The camp was run in a tough and disciplined fashion by the Army. Most of the workers gained a respect for themselves and for hard work in the camps. Many were the core of Army recruits when WWII began. Those who were in the camp near Estes Park left Rocky Mountain National park with a legacy of back country trails and bridges that are still there today. Yes, it was a make-work project, but it provided useful, lasting infrastructure. Today something of a similar nature might be part of the solution to inner city gangs and poverty. It would have nothing to do with getting the economy going except in a peripheral way. (Getting unemployed/unemployable youth off of welfare/crime/drugs and into useful work. Teaching the value and self respect that come with hard physical work.)