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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Bouffant Nation

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You probably don’t think of yourself as an employer, but you are: you create a job every time you hire someone to cut your hair. So let me ask you something: why do you create that job?

Do you create that job to help the economy recover? Do you create that job to reduce the unemployment rate among stylists? Do you create that job to correct a trade imbalance? Do you get your hair cut more often because President Obama or Governor Walker wants to create more jobs?

Would you get twice as many haircuts to earn a $5 rebate from the government? Would you go get yourself a B52-style bouffant if the government paid half through cash-for-coifs? If your state put a $100 tax on each haircut, would you pay it or create that job across the state line where there is no haircut tax? See - this employer stuff is not so complicated.

Unless you are a muttonhead, you only hire someone to cut your hair because you need a haircut – keyword need. And you hire a stylist with skills that meet your requirements – keyword skills. And you hire someone you can afford – keyword afford.

Job creation only happens when those three things come together: demand, skill, and price. No demand, no jobs; no skilled workers, no jobs; too pricey, no jobs. Can government compel those three things to heel? I think you know.

Government fiscal and monetary policy can do little to stimulate demand, as the past three years under both President Obama and President Bush have demonstrated. All the Keynesian multipliers in the universe cannot make your hair grow any faster, and deficit spending merely borrows from Friday to make Monday’s appointments more expensive. See - economics isn’t that complicated, either.

Government schools have diminished employable skills – reading, math, courtesy, ambition, competitive drive, achievement, standards, loyalty, discipline, accountability, respect – for decades. Government Affirmative Action programs and feel-good academic silliness have dumbed-down standards for college entrance tests, civil service exams, and professional certifications, diluting skills to achieve dubious social engineering objectives.

Government’s economic interventions almost always increase the price of labor. Regulation, taxation, unionization, and protectionism all add costs, but do not add any value.

So if government can not create demand, improve skills, or make labor more affordable, what can it do to help the private sector create jobs?

Watch it. Stand back and leave it alone; take as little as possible in the way of taxes, regulate only enough to make regular, and protect the sanctity of the exchange instead of picking winners and losers. Did you need government intervention to get your last haircut? Can you imagine how hideous a one-size-fits-all government-issued haircut would look like?

When this nation was founded, 95 out of 100 Americans grew food to feed themselves and the other 5. Today, with modern farm equipment and chemicals, 3 out of 100 Americans feed the whole nation and a good bit of the rest of the world. The industrialization of America spanned two centuries; the de-industrialization is occurring at a much faster pace. Since 2000, manufacturing employment has dropped by 63% to just over 11 million. And government has grown to 22.5 million and unemployment to over 15 million.

Our great-grandparents left the farm to work in the factories. Where will our kids go to make their dreams come true – the DMV? Subway? Paychex? Is the future going to be 10 of us driving around in Volts writing up carbon violations against the 3 of us that make windmill parts to fill up a warehouse until the tax subsidies run out and the Dutch owners close up shop? That seems to be the Obama/Biden vision. And trains, because…well, because.

The difference between the 19th century and the 21st century is that federal, state, and local government back then consumed less than 10% of GDP, so free enterprise was 90% free. Today, our runaway government spends over 60% of GDP, nags and nannies us to death, and deprives us of the energy we need to sustain our living standards based on a superstition that honest science has already abandoned.

Should we wonder why the recovery didn’t come again this time around like the Easter Bunny always does? The more our governments do to “help”, the more we prolong the deep recession and high rates of joblessness we have become mired in. You can’t be for jobs and against the corporations that provide them.

And we cannot just be Bouffant Nation, where the Fed prints scads of money and we all cut each other’s hair. We need to invent things here, to make them here, and to export them from here all over the world. That takes energy, a skilled workforce, sound money, and less government than we have now – a lot less.

The trick to free enterprise is the “free” part. Get government out of the way and we will quickly discover that American ingenuity did not die; it has been napping until the day when it can again thrive free of government interference.


“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”





" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Hmmmmm, the government here developed a stimulus package to boost the economy at the start of the GFC. Guess it worked, seeing as though we are one of the few nations still experiencing economic growth.

*raspberry*

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Government schools have diminished employable skills – reading, math, courtesy, ambition, competitive drive, achievement, standards, loyalty, discipline, accountability, respect – for decades.

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Government Affirmative Action programs and feel-good academic silliness have dumbed-down standards for college entrance tests, civil service exams, and professional certifications, diluting skills to achieve dubious social engineering objectives.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Some people still believe the world is 4000 years old. They keep telling themselves the same ol lies because it suits them, despite evidence to the contrary. Have a nice day :)

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

I'd be curious to know where this "doctor" got his doctorate. I certainly *hope* it didn't come from one of those diploma mills with dumbed-down professional certifications! Or, fates forbid, a STATE school of some sort, or a school that ever received even a penny of public (taxpayer) funding.

Because then he'd have to utterly dismiss even his own esteemed "wisdom".

One thing is clear from his babbling and incoherence, though: he didn't get his doctorate in economics.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
The Earth in about 4.6 billion yrs old.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

I'd be curious to know where this "doctor" got his doctorate. I certainly *hope* it didn't come from one of those diploma mills with dumbed-down professional certifications! Or, fates forbid, a STATE school of some sort, or a school that ever received even a penny of public (taxpayer) funding.

Because then he'd have to utterly dismiss even his own esteemed "wisdom".

One thing is clear from his babbling and incoherence, though: he didn't get his doctorate in economics.

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Saul Alinksy - 101.

Crassic.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
The Earth in about 4.6 billion yrs old.

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It in?

Crassic.

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Job creation only happens when those three things come together: demand, skill, and price. No demand, no jobs; no skilled workers, no jobs; too pricey, no jobs. Can government compel those three things to heel? I think you know.

Government fiscal and monetary policy can do little to stimulate demand, as the past three years under both President Obama and President Bush have demonstrated. All the Keynesian multipliers in the universe cannot make your hair grow any faster, and deficit spending merely borrows from Friday to make Monday’s appointments more expensive. See - economics isn’t that complicated, either.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
The Earth in about 4.6 billion yrs old.

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It in?

Crassic.

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A common intentional misspelling, to make fun of something something blah blah.....

When others do it, it's a typo, but when Kwickie does it, it's intentional.

lame.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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See - economics isn’t that complicated

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:I'm fairly certain you made a typo, Raptor, since there is no value in misspelling 'is.' It would be better to admit the truth, and also say that it has nothing to do with your argument.

I find the spelling debates tedious. We all make mistakes. Mr. Raptor's arguments are not invalidated because of his spelling. They stand on their own merit.

--Anthony

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

Of course, *I* made a mistake. But when kwickie does it, it's on purpose.

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And you're right, kwickie IS tedious.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Isn't the right to be tedious enshrined in the constitution somewhere?

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Isn't the right to be tedious enshrined in the constitution somewhere?

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Yes, in the First Amendment. :)

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Hmmm... noticed you had nothing substantive to say.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:


Actually, the founders were talking about the freedom of political speech, and not mindless tedium.

But that's well above Kwickie's comprehension level. So there we have it.

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You're asking me to dissect this guys article, and play along w/ your demand = price angle ?

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Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. (Something you claim to support, but apparently know nothing about) Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price. The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand.

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I do indeed have a problem with the stance this article takes on public education.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
SignyM - you have to remember when you are dealing with Rap you are dealing with a brutally selfish mother-fucker whose biggest source of frustration is living in a society that requires he care if people live or die.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Yeah, but Rappy still hasn't answered me, and I posted what I thought was a very reasonable response.

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Answered what , exactly?

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