Right, Wrong, Indifferent

The article linked below tries to make the case that - compared to other
nations like the US, the US is not that bad off. IOW, we're better off
than other countries more socialized than we are. Yawn.

Why then, aren't the authors advocating that we eliminate our more
socialist elements?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/business/us-economy-is-doing-well-comp
ared-with-other-nations.html?_r=1&

Of course, they do not, and instead bemoan the fact that the US does not
"protect" jobs as well as the more socialized economies, but ignores
that the result of such "protection" is that jobs growth and economic
growth in those nations has fallen behind US number for years.

The authors then quote research that points out a significant fact -
recessions based on monetary foul play, like the one the world is in now
- take a long time for recovery, as the present recession is.

Good points made, but why then does the leadership continue to keep
piling on with financial tom-foolery like spending increases,
quantitative easing, and a "health care program" that will vastly
increase federal expenditures? To say that the present administration
is not making things worse, by comparison with others with an even more
socialist bent than his, is hardly grounds for a "bye".


"With financial markets careening around the world, in January 2009 a
newly inaugurated President Obama acknowledged he had to fix the problem
pretty fast. "If I don't have this done in three years," he told NBC's
Matt Lauer, "then there's gonna be a one-term proposition." "

The authors make a case that the President "should have worked harder on
jobs."

But at some point, this case is irrational. When the money is spent in
massive piles at the front end of the presidency, it better be spent on
the most important things. I frankly don't know what those things are,
but the cry of the statist is "we have to spend more money now on the
"crisis du jour." There's never any prioritization, there's never any
perspective offered along the lines of, "If we blow 800 billion today
trying to fix our funny money system, there's not likely to be more
money to burn to burnish our political army later." Or, "I know this
health care programs going to crowd out everything else in the budget,
but that's the way it goes, sorry I won't have any money left for jobs."

Now, the question of whether government can create jobs is another one
entirely, and I say "I'll believe it when I see it." It's easy to give
people money to do something. It's hard to employ people in a way that
the person's labor creates more value than it costs. For every
government job, the most that can be hoped for is that the cost for
employment allows other, productive employment, to happen.

For example, we expend a pretty penny on "national defense" annually,
but all that money is just gone - it creates no value per se. Money
spent to employ auto builders or web designers, on the other hand, in a
profitable corporation, results in greater value produced than cost
expended.

In short, all punditry to the contrary, there's not much that a
government can do to grow an economy by "creating jobs" except by
reducing the governmental load on businesses; IOW, make it less
expensive to hire someone.

Obama, of course, has done just the
opposite.(http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/10/22/obamacare
_rhetoric_vs_reality_115851.html).

I don't hold any hope that Romney's presidency will create any lasting
change in the economy except that he does not represent a mindset,
seemingly held by the president, that business is an evil to be
suffered, siphoned from, and used to create "social" outcomes the
president desires. Perhaps in the face of a less openly hostile
administration, business will get back to the basics: hiring people who
will help them profit (IOW will provide more productivity than expense).