dailykos.com— GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney spent a lot of time and energy on his "job creator" claim, the idea that he created 100,000 jobs through his work at Bain Capital.
Jan 14, 2012View in Crawl 4
Romney is no student of history and we would be remiss to not call him out in his ignorance. He is on record as being against the bailouts, saying that the market should be allowed to bottom out and then correct itself. However, the historical example I am going to provide proves just how dangerous and misguided that idea is.
In 1929, the stock market crashed and helped usher in the Great Depression. The president was Herbert Hoover, a republican, who had a market view that Romney shares: that government should not intervene and that the market is self-correcting. In fact, Hoover believed that the market would correct itself in just a matter of months. Banks started failing in 1930 and unemployment rose from 3.2% to 8.7%; by 1931, unemployment rose to around 16% and GNP tumbles; by 1932, unemployment rose to over 23%, over 5000 banks had failed, 9 million people had their entire fortunes wiped out, agricultural prices had fallen by 53% since 1929, and the people of this country were depressed and hurting.
Now imagine what would have happened had we followed Romney's prescription for this recession: there would have been no automobile industry bailouts, no bank bailouts, no mortgage assistance, and no government intervention. If history is any indicator, we would be reliving the Great Depression all over again. My grandmother lived through the Great Depression; the effects of it on her were so deep and so profound that it affected her until the day she died.
exactly. it boggles my mind to see people arguing against something without caring or any thought to unintended consequences or that if get rid of something... i guess like the FED whats going to take its place? will it be better?
People don't read or understand history. Under FDR, who won a landslide victory over an impotent Herbert Hoover, massive infrastructure and other public works projects were started that put millions of people back to work. While those jobs were never meant to be permanent, they did get people working and put money in their pockets until the economy started growing again.
All of the Republican candidates agree that, maybe other than Ron Paul, we need to spend more on upgrading our infrastructure. Yet, we have Republicans in Congress who have blocked funding for those projects simply because they want Obama to fail. They are willing to prolong the hurt and suffering of Americans to simply try and get Obama out of office, not matter what the cost.
if we were to invest in research and development of alternative energy in the same way we aggressively went after the moon with apollo. you can't get up in the morning without touching something that is from or a direct descendant of the developments by nasa.
it would directly address everything that is killing us. it would create jobs... it would spawn the formation of new companies and industries... it would make out energy supply more secure... it would reduce the cost of energy... it would generate revenue for the government... it would help reduce our debt... it would directly address the environmental problems we are currently not addressing.
but there is no immediate profit in that. It seems that if something doesnt make a profit instantly, it's not worth doing. It's so not worth doing that they will fight anyone that wants to try anyway, for some reason
thats why private industry can't be depended on. if we'd left getting to the moon to business we'd not have gone to the moon.
government money that goes straight to business to do the research end up like solyndra. the business is getting research money not producing a product or you end up with the military industrial complex.
it needs to be a government agency like nasa who have a mission like going to the moon. they contract with private industry and research institutions to design components. thats how it gets done.
i am pretty firmly convinced that the other thing that made nasa sucessful is that the time frame was 10 years. i think we can do anything in 10 years and that fits inside the political turn over. if it spans longer we loose interest.
thats my opinion. i know that free market worshipers just can't accept that government can do it better but there is no evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps more to the point is that Romney probably does not in truth have much idea how many jobs he ever created or destroyed during his career because....well, it was never of much concern to him one way or the other.....all that mattered was how to best squeeze every possible dollar of profit out of the business....people/employees were just incidentals.
As opposed to the magnanimous Democrats who are ever generous with other people's money and are responsible for, along with the Great Depression, now Son of the Great Depression?
Thank you for your compassion and magnanimity Barack Obama. Thank you for helping to destroy trillions of dollars of real estate value and so crash the U.S. economy in way that'll, hopefully, result in your loss of office as it's already resulted in the loss of the House.
Hey stupid, maybe we can resurrect the CCC and pay people with tax money to dig holes and fill them up. Money that could have gone to create real jobs but instead went to make-work programs when it didn't go into the pockets of the corrupt Democrats running the CCC.
Oh wait, that's already happened this time around, hasn't it?
Why do you feel the need to compare Romney's actions in this situation to unrelated actions taken by Obama? Obama's a s**tty president but that doesn't somehow conteract how much of a douchebag Romney is. One of them being bad doesn't make the other good or better. Romney's previous job was to be a douchebag in order to try to turn companies around. Just because there isn't anything legally or even morally wrong with what everyone is calling "vulture capitalism," doesn't mean Romney isn't still a douchebag.
He was using the number created, but not the number destroyed at first. When people called him out on it, he had to switch to net gain, which only ended up being thousands. It wasn't a direct lie, just one of those statistical truths that get used a lot in elections.
how dumb are you? There is no one you wouldn't defend as long as they are "conservative" . When did political philosophy become a cult where you have to defend and make lies about someone just because they are in the political party you align yourself with?
Consumption is what creates jobs. The people paying for the service/product are the actual job creators. If they don't want the service/product, those jobs go away.
When you sack 1000 people, its kind of hard for them to maintain a very high level of comsumption, thus more jobs are lost and comsumption goes down again and again with each new wave. But the corporate raiders are lining their pockets and being "job creators" in third world countries, exploiting child labor.
Consumption doesn't create jobs.. investment/savings facilitates innovation which creates jobs. Anticipation of future consumption creates jobs. Consuming something that already exists doesn't create jobs - it just means we end up with less of whatever was consumed than what we had before.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
I'll revise my statement, because I agree with you that "Anticipation of future consumption creates jobs." Consumption sustains jobs. So sure, the person who innovated/started a new company/what have you, plays a significant role in the inception. But without consumption, that behavior is ultimately pointless. Consuming something that already exists can create jobs: if a company sees greater demand, they may see reason to hire more people to supply their product/service. This is exactly an application of your point that "Anticipation of future consumption creates jobs."
With all due respect, I think you have the cart before the horse. "investment/savings facilitates innovation" means little to a company without sales/consumption.
Car dealership; more people buying cars means hiring more salespeople. Check.
Retail; more customers - more sales = hire more people. Check.
Manufacturing; sell more product = demand for greater production = need another shift = hire more people. Check.
In your scenario:
Apple makes a new toy for the sheeple = more sales = more jobs ----> While the investment in R&D may have provided th enew toy and thus the opportunity for more sales being possible, the jobs flow from increased consumption not from the sheer act of "innovation". Capitalism is entirely dependent upon consumption - and consumption. That is why the Consumer Confidence index is one of the most important bell-weathers for economic activity.
How does Apple make and release a new toy without investing in R&D, marketing, etc? And more to the point, how does #companywehaveneverheardof create a new toy without investing in offices, staff, equipment, etc etc? That's what I mean by investment - investment in new products, not investment in manufacturing/stocking existing ones.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Okay, I see your point. The new stuff isn't going to be made if there is no perceived market. But generally speaking, I don't think people just blowing money on frivolous things is good for the economy. You could imagine marketing new labor-saving or otherwise cost-saving innovations. I don't know what that would be, and if I did I wouldn't tell you (haha).
But thinking that the key to everything is more consumption, to me, seems wrong. Our economy is already consumption-driven. That's the problem between US and China - they are too investment-driven, we are too consumer-driving. We spend too much of our income on consumption, and they save too much. Over time they'll become more consumer-driven and we'll become less. We must.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
I know they say not to judge a book by its cover but how can anyone not think that idiot romney and half of the rest of the candidates are douche bags slime that just want to position themselves to be among the most powerful men in the world just by looking at them?
Doesn't this apply to almost all politicians?
We need to replace all of them, in both parties. I don't think the founding fathers envisioned career politicians, I believe the average citizen was to get elected, go serve his fellow countrymen for a short time, then return to his regular job and live his life. Career politicians are the greatest threat to this country.
This is great! The conservatives are going to crash and burn. The Evangelicals are supporting Santorum (who is a closet gay) and if Romney (Mr Magic Underwear) wins they will not vote for him in droves.
The only hope for them is to get people to not vote. We all know that if most of the US voted that the conservatives would never win. This is the way it used to be and we can only hope we can get back to that.
Conservatives are the largest single ideological group in the US according to Gallup:
"Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal."
Not that it helps Romney any, he isn't really a conservative, though he's changed some pretty important positions to try and appear that way. The GOP, and thus America in this election (unless the Democrats come up with someone other than Obama), has only one good choice and that is Ron Paul and his unwavering support of the Constitution and disdain for big government.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Basically this is bologna. The advertising done by the right has made the "less informed" think they are conservative. You have heard about the, "Why do people vote against their best interest?". BTW, very good job of doing that. It is amazing what kind of s**t they are making them believe.
Examples:
Our current president has made the rich, richer.
Our current president has done more for the gun lobby than any other politician.
Our current president has done better for corporations that most others.
Our current president believes in god.
If you are conservative you would believe that all of that is untrue and you would be wrong. Again, very good job of propaganda.
This is all just facts and the GOP will lose and lose bad. I can only hope that it will be a repeat of 7 years ago and they will finally just fall apart along with the tea bagger and ron paul retards.
I will not discount the power of the propaganda machine though. It has served you very well.
What I find most surprising is that anyone believes anything that he says he did. The truth is he will tell the American's whatever they want to hear because he feeds on trends. If that's what you want today, well Romney wants that too, Oh you changed your mind? Hard to change your ethical stance but politicians are special people...
The fact that people are voting for the guy shows the rest of the world that the GOP isn't ready for real change. If it truly was, we would be seeing Ron Paul leading in the polls not this clown.
This is not the kind of attack to level at him during a primary. He only created X jobs and not Y jobs. So? The number is still quite a few.
The flip-flopping for political expediency, the socialized medicine in his 'home' state, and several other issues is why that even though he's 'winning' the primaries, the response has been very lukewarm for GOP voters. The fact that McCain endorsed this guy just about seals the deal in that this guy might as well be McCain with better hair.
I just don't see voters getting excited to get behind Romney in the general election either. Once you cut through all the sabre rattling that the establishments both do, Obama's policies weren't that different from Bush on most accounts, and if anything Obama is being at least as aggressive on the 'foreign policy' front (undeclared war). Romney's policies don't promise to be all the different from Obama's, which wouldn't have been all that different from McSame's.
Obama and Romney when compared just have slightly different brands of big government, and big regulation to sell us. (Competing between the 40 yard lines) Voters won't trust Romney to not grow spending like Bush did.
What we're witnessing now in the Republican party is the big government GOP establishment running headfirst into a wall of voters who actually WANT a future that isn't completely burdened with debt. When enough people running finally shake out, and a proper critique of Romney is finally debated (hint, Bain Capital has nothing to do with it) Romney will finally be 'rejected' at the polls.
Entrepreneurs create wealth. In my opinion it's possible to destroy it also by making bad decisions on where it's spent, but that's just me :)Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
That depends on your view of wealth, If you value living in a cave and eating nuts is wealth then nature would create that for you.
If however you consider houses, sushi and Ipads to be wealth those are only created by entrepreneurs. NOT politicians.
My personal view is yes, in a world where everyone was productive everyone could be rich. You don't need to have losers to have winners. For example I could build my own house with my own hands. That makes me wealthy and nobody had to lose from that.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Houses, sushi, and iPads are produced with the intention of exchanging them for something of value - money/cash. Creating an iPad is not creating wealth. It costs something to produce, and is sold for a profit. Wealth is transferred in this scenario, nowhere created. The workers who get paid to make the iPads transfer their labor into money. Again, no wealth creation, only wealth transfer.
If you build your own house with your own hands, you'd be spending your labor on it (and possibility money for materials). You didn't create any wealth.
Sorry, I could not reply to your comment below because of nesting limits.
In your view then an Ipad is no more than the sum of the metal and plastic and energy used to make it. That's where we disagree. I would not pay 600$ for the raw parts and a few kilojoules of energy as I would pay for the finished product. Neither, probably would you. Apple has created wealth by summing these factors of production to make something greater than the sum of the parts.
I understand your argument, but disagree that the iPad is "greater than the sum of its parts." An iPad is exactly the sum of its parts; If it wasn't, it wouldn't function. The software and design work that went into the iPad are just as much "parts" as the physical ones. Any time spent on figuring out how that all works together is also a "part." Just because the part isn't tangible doesn't mean it's not there. (Coming from a professional software engineer).
In your example of digging holes and filling them in again, you're not destroying wealth. You're creating a scenario in which the net result is to only transfer wealth. The ground goes from intact, to having a hole, to intact again. No benefit to the ground, although it possibly aerated it a bit. But whoever dug the hole and filled it has been able to transfer their labor into wealth when they might not have otherwise. No wealth destruction, only wealth transfer.
Ok Musicman. In your view wealth is nothing to do with the economy (what people pay for stuff). I think you are speaking about the conservation of energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy). If the economy were so simple a physicist would have solved the riddle of how to avoid boom/bust long ago.
Economic wealth is what people will pay for "stuff" as measured by a unit of currency. No more and no less. It has no connection to physics, and I personally think it's a nearly useless measure because it's impossible to capture unknowns like environmental damage when measuring aggregate wealth of the world. But there we are, people use it and we are stuck with it.
Just to get back to the topic, politicians can certainly destroy economic wealth. If it was not the case there would be no point in having good ones.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
I think the principle of conservation of energy does naturally extend here. This doesn't make things simple, in fact, the fact that so many entities are a part of this system is exactly what makes it so complicated. (What makes economics so complicated). To say that a physicist could simply apply the notion of conservation of energy and figure everything out (or to imply that I'm suggesting that) is obviously ridiculous.
I think you confuse the creation of impediments and opportunities for wealth transfer to actual destruction and creation of wealth. No one is creating or destroying wealth, though they may obviously be able to affect how easily, and in what manners, wealth is transferred.
Fair enough :) I'm happy to be shown wrong, but I've yet to find something that really convinces me that wealth creation/destruction happens. Anyone who read this conversation who has some thorough reading on the subject, please present it!
I'm afraid Michael is right from an econ perspective. Imagine you own a farm, and you produce twice as much food as you can use. Half of the food is important to you, because you need it to survive. The other half is worthless to you because you can't benefit from it.
But suppose you run across someone who has something else of value - say, the ability to build and repair wooden things. He could build a house and furniture for you and repair them if/when they break, and you can give him food, which he values because he also needs to eat to survive.
Thus, your surplus food, which always existed in some form, becomes more valuable. So matter and energy are conserved, but value is not.
(You could claim that the food always had value and trading it with the other man only allowed you to unlock the value, but that misunderstands what we mean here by 'value'. In any case, once the food goes to waste and rots, it no longer has that value. So whether you say that the ability to trade the food made it valuable, or you say the ability to trade the food allowed us to unlock the value is just language. The underlying truth is the same - labor and trade can make our lives better.)
(In fact, just farming created value - you turned 'worthless' dirt and water into valuable, edible food.)
I'm afraid I still don't see wealth being created anywhere in your example.
"Thus, your surplus food, which always existed in some form, becomes more valuable. So matter and energy are conserved, but value is not."
I disagree that the food somehow became more valuable. The value of the food was always there to the other party (the handyman or whatever), you were just: ignorant of it, and/or incapable of capitalizing on it.
This is what I meant by suggesting that micheal confused opportunities and impediments to wealth transfer as wealth creation and destruction.
I just noticed that you suggested my argument is invalid, but I don't see you supporting that, just suggesting that it's semantics. The problem is that I consider this a rather significant issue to address, as many people argue that "job creators" or "wealth creators" somehow are deserving of everything they have coming to them, as they "created it." I would appreciate a more substantial rebuttal to my suggestion that the value was always there.
Yes, I suspected you would claim that in some way the food had value even when we were not utilizing it, which is why I specified that we _could_ go to the trouble of booking the value when the food is created, then booking the loss in value when the food rots. I'm choosing to see 'value' as the total subjective value of the things that everyone owns in their own opinions.
IE, if I have an iPad and I value it at $500, and you would value it at $700, I would book it at worth $500 unless/until you bought it in which case it becomes worth $700.
In essence, everything is worth the maximum amount that the owner would refuse to sell it for, and if someone thinks the owner is wrong, he buys the item and the value increases to whatever amount is the maximum HE would refuse to sell it for.
Why "the maximum amount at which the owner would not sell the item"? The idea is that if you offered to buy something from me with an amount of money equal to the amount I value the item, I have no reason to make the trade, because I don't benefit from it.
I remember a while back, I was offering to sell a TV on Craigslist for, say, $800. Someone offered me $500, and I declined. He said I was crazy - there was no way the TV was worth $800. I told him that I didn't know why he was getting angry - what he was saying was that he would prefer to have $800 rather than have the TV, and that's exactly how I feel. I would prefer to have $800 rather than have the TV. Further, he was saying he would prefer to have the TV rather than have $500, and I felt the same way. I would prefer to have the TV rather than have $500 as well. So he was getting angry with me for feeling the same way about the TV as I did. I think he saw my point.
When it comes to letting people reap the benefits of their work, I don't care what philosophical argument you use to justify it. The important thing is, it works. Look at China before liberalization and after - letting people reap the fruits of their labor causes people to work harder, faster and/or smarter and they end up with more fruits. Trying to spread it around equally to everyone creates starvation.
That said, I'm sure there is a happy middle ground where people at the bottom of the income ladder get a little push up, while still allowing people at the top of the ladder to climb as high as their hearts desire.
I'm not suggesting socialism. What I'm suggesting is that some are making an argument to suggest that they deserve more. I'm not necessarily trying to argue the reverse, only to criticize what I consider a flimsy argument.
At this point I don't know what you're arguing. I am contesting that wealth is created. I don't see you providing a particular argument that it is. (not saying you aren't - I just don't see it).Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
I'm arguing that wealth can be created. Suppose I have $20 worth of materials and you have $600. The total value in the system is $620. I 'magically' turn those $20 worth of materials into an iPad, which you value by at least $600. We trade - you get an iPad and I get your $600. Now there's at least $1200 of value in the system - the $600 in cash and the iPad which you value by at least $600.
I created at least $580 worth of value by turning the materials into an iPad.
(I invoke magic in this example so as to avoid having to book the value of the machinery needed to turn the materials into an iPad. If we assume that the machine is just as valuable after producing the iPad as it was before, this should not disrupt the example. If we assume there is some wear on the machine, then we need to account for that loss of value of the machine, but I'm assuming it's negligible.)
Just because someone is willing to pay an amount for something does not mean it has that value. Just because someone is willing to engage in an exchance that results in one person profiting, does not constitute a demonstration of creation of wealth, in my view. You didn't create wealth for yourself, you simply created a situation in which you end up with more than you put in.
"Just because someone is willing to pay an amount for something does not mean it has that value."
Assuming freedom and rationality, of course that's what it means. What else could it mean? If you don't think something is worth the price, why would you buy it?
"If I buy land, find that it has natural resources valued beyond my purchase price, and sell it for a profit mean I have created wealth?"
I know it sounds silly, but apparently, yes. I would guess that an economist would tell you the wealth is in the knowledge that the natural resources exist. But that shouldn't surprise you - information obviously has value. Otherwise Google, a tool for finding information, wouldn't be worth billions of dollars.
It sounds silly because it's absurd. To use such logic to argue anything is ridiculous. If this is what people mean by "creating wealth" then I'll assume their opinion on the matter is next to worthless.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
I don't exactly see you offering an alternative. If you buy a piece of land, then you go to the effort of checking to see if it has any natural resources, and you find that it does, such that the perceived value of the land is greater than it was previously, who do you think should capture the gain? The previous owner? Society as a whole? Society as a whole already had a chance to capture the value of all the land when it privatized the land to begin with.
If you ask me, society as a whole should never have given away and/or sold the land to begin with - we should have sold leases. But society as a whole DID transfer ownership of the land to private hands, so now we have to live with the consequences.
Why do I need to propose an alternative? I'm not trying to suggest some kind of economic system, simply pointing out this notion of "wealth creation" as what it is - absurd.
My point is that wealth cannot inherently be created. If I buy land, find it has more value, and sell it for a profit, obviously I should get the profit. My point has nothing to do with that. My point is that the profit I receive was not "created." The profit I receive is a transfer of wealth, which in turn is only happening in the hopes that the other party will also profit, again, a transfer of wealth.
Well, the important thing is that you do recognize that you are wrong and are trying to understand how/why you are wrong. Keep working at it and I'm sure you'll get it in time.
By the way, if you REALLY want to have your mind blown regarding money and value, check out this podcast from NPR Planet Money regarding The Island of Yap:
Your definition of 'wealth' is laughable ;) What is it, by the way? I have utterly failed to piece it together from our discussion thus far.
We could just be in a Bill Clinton argument (did you have sex with her? no. Aha - but she gave you oral sex? Yes. So you had sex with her? No. "have sex" implies sexual intercourse...)
I've made no attempt to define wealth, and indeed that may be an issue in any miscommunication going on. But perhaps next time you suggest knowing of someone else's ignorance/validity of their argument, you should not be speaking from a position of ignorance yourself.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying "profit" = "creation of wealth." In such a scenario, one person is paying for the profits of the other. Where is the wealth being CREATED?
To "create wealth" should mean to increase the amount of wealth. But there's clearly some words missing in that - increase the amount of wealth in what? You seem to be thinking the next three words are "in the universe", or at least "in the planet". I would suggest changing this phrase to "in the economy". Sure, you can not physically create a pound of gold (ie, bring a pound of gold into physical existence). But economically, digging a hole and pulling out a pound of gold is a kind of "creating gold". It increase the amount of gold in the economy.
I'm not thinking "in the universe." I am thinking "in the economy." I do not believe that "growing the economy" is creation of wealth. The economy can grow, however, due to increases in opportunity to transfer wealth. Labor (and I don't just mean physical labor) is valuable. Advances in technology that increase the amount of labor that can contribute to the economy can grow the economy - but this is not "created wealth." It is creation of opportunity. A subtle distinction, but so is the idea that atheists do not "believe there is no god." - but some people miss that one completely.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying "profit" = "creation of wealth." "
I don't feel that's what I'm saying, though what I am saying may ultimately be mathematically equivalent (I'd have to think about it).
What I'm saying is that you paying me $500 for my iPad doesn't destroy the $500. That money still exists, and it still has value. And the iPad has value, as evidenced by the fact that you paid for it. So if we start with a situation where all the valuable things in the economy is your $500 and my $20 worth of materials, and I turn those materials into an iPad that you value at $500, you give me the money, I give you the iPad, and now there is $1000 of wealth where there once was $520 of wealth.
If you reject the idea that someone paying money for something proves it is worth the amount of money paid, then yes, this line of argument crumbles. But then you need to explain what your idea of wealth is. You may be defining wealth in such a way that wealth is conserved, in which case we have a linguistic problem only.
I think my reasoning relies on the notion of including labor as a resource.
In your scenario:
Beginning:
Party A) $500
Party B) $20
Total = $520
End:
Party A) $500 iPad
Party B) $500
Total = $1000
What my scenario would look like is this:
Beginning:
Party A) $500
Party B) $20 + ability to labor
End:
Party A) $500 iPad
Party B) $500 - costs of labor
It's the labor part that makes all the difference. If a single person was the laborer, sure, they get all the money. But, my idea is that they have not created wealth, they have transferred their labor into wealth - $480 worth of it.
Subjectivity is allowed, but if we start dividing up that "labor" into everyone involved, it becomes harder and harder to present one individual as the "wealth creator." This is my problem with the notion that wealth is created - we ignore what else goes into the equation - people.
Well, yes, all wealth comes from labor. We use labor to dig raw materials out of the ground, we use labor to convert those raw materials into refined materials, etc. Labor is the process by which wealth is created. I don't see a problem with that.
It's not that you can't find a person who created the wealth - every person who contributed labor created part of the wealth.
Maybe you should have agreed to disagree Amaoican ;)
It's an argument that cannot be won because Musicman is basically saying that kinetic energy + potential energy is a constant and that all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle are there. If someone puts it together or not he sees no difference.You cannot inject intangible concepts like human perception of value into such a framework.
You may be right but I was really hoping there was actually something "there", you know? That he had an actual workable theory that was different from the prevailing one.
It seems Mittens and Obama have another thing in common, though in Romney's defense at least he didn't use $800+ billion borrowed public dollars to do whatever it was he actually did.
It's no coincidence that several key campaign contributors to Barack Obama are also top campaign contributors to Mitt Romney...all of the common ones being large banks. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, UBS AG, Morgan Stanley...list goes on but you get the picture.
Hey Obama worshippers, if you don't like Mitt the crony capitalist you'd better be consistent and denounce Obama. Bain Capital and its employees are big Obama donors.
I also found that a dummy pac 'W Spann LLC 'had been used by Bain
as a way to funnel more money to the Romney super-pac "Restore Our Future". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restore_Our_Future
Then I found a republican web site siting Rush Limbaugh
citing a Washington Post story that cited a Washington Examiner story
from last October, that said that three employees of Bain
had contributed the total sum of $70,000 to Obama's reelection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restore_Our_Future
You give us the Washington Post article from October,
- and three more links for extra padding.
The WP story is a good one!
They show that last fall Obama got $76,600 from
three Bain Capital employees; as opposed to Romney
getting only a humiliating $34,000 from workers at his old firm.
The Hill article is different but related;
reporting how Democrats have received more
donations from private-equity firms and individuals
in financial jobs, than Republicans have.
The Hot Air web-page is a mere re-chewing for better
digestion, of the WP article.
Then, sadly; you, Rush, and Satan collude
to twist all that into the lie that 'Bain Capital is a big
donor to Obama'.
When in point of fact the Corporation known as Bain
Capital is Mitt Romney's single biggest political
donator.
The 'official' total donated to date: $2.7 million.
And unlike Obama, Mitt isn't even the nominee yet.
That figure does not include the more than $200,000 that
employees and family members from Staples and Pizza Hut
have also contributed to Romney; both of which are Bain
companies.
Nor does it include donations secretly funneled to Romney
like Ed Conrad, (former managing director at Bain) who
donated $1 million via the dummy corporation W. Spann LLC.
Still, You have made two good points:
1) most workers in Financial industries think
Democrats in general and Obama in particular,
are the best choices for a capitalist America.
2) the ability to read what one links to is important to
those who embarrass easily.
You have no real definition of 'crony capitalism'
except 'business connected to politicians
of whom you do not approve'.
1) Most workers in the finance industry benefit
from the same kind of capitalism as roofers,
programmers, store clerks and farmers.
If you have secret proof otherwise?
- cite it.
And If you have a beter way of communicating,
- then for god's sake use it!
So far all you have done is mix limp insults
about sentence structure with lifeless
affirmations that "Wall Street Loves Obama
and that capitalist lackey Elizabeth Warren".
The problem with GOP talking points is that they are never updated, even though reality continues to change, gradually making those talking points old and out of date. In this case, there probably was a time when the net job creation was negative 6 million. But that time has passed.
NeosopheusJan 15, 2012
Romney is no student of history and we would be remiss to not call him out in his ignorance. He is on record as being against the bailouts, saying that the market should be allowed to bottom out and then correct itself. However, the historical example I am going to provide proves just how dangerous and misguided that idea is.
In 1929, the stock market crashed and helped usher in the Great Depression. The president was Herbert Hoover, a republican, who had a market view that Romney shares: that government should not intervene and that the market is self-correcting. In fact, Hoover believed that the market would correct itself in just a matter of months. Banks started failing in 1930 and unemployment rose from 3.2% to 8.7%; by 1931, unemployment rose to around 16% and GNP tumbles; by 1932, unemployment rose to over 23%, over 5000 banks had failed, 9 million people had their entire fortunes wiped out, agricultural prices had fallen by 53% since 1929, and the people of this country were depressed and hurting.
Now imagine what would have happened had we followed Romney's prescription for this recession: there would have been no automobile industry bailouts, no bank bailouts, no mortgage assistance, and no government intervention. If history is any indicator, we would be reliving the Great Depression all over again. My grandmother lived through the Great Depression; the effects of it on her were so deep and so profound that it affected her until the day she died.
starmanjonesJan 15, 2012
exactly. it boggles my mind to see people arguing against something without caring or any thought to unintended consequences or that if get rid of something... i guess like the FED whats going to take its place? will it be better?
NeosopheusJan 15, 2012
People don't read or understand history. Under FDR, who won a landslide victory over an impotent Herbert Hoover, massive infrastructure and other public works projects were started that put millions of people back to work. While those jobs were never meant to be permanent, they did get people working and put money in their pockets until the economy started growing again.
All of the Republican candidates agree that, maybe other than Ron Paul, we need to spend more on upgrading our infrastructure. Yet, we have Republicans in Congress who have blocked funding for those projects simply because they want Obama to fail. They are willing to prolong the hurt and suffering of Americans to simply try and get Obama out of office, not matter what the cost.
starmanjonesJan 15, 2012
if we were to invest in research and development of alternative energy in the same way we aggressively went after the moon with apollo. you can't get up in the morning without touching something that is from or a direct descendant of the developments by nasa.
it would directly address everything that is killing us. it would create jobs... it would spawn the formation of new companies and industries... it would make out energy supply more secure... it would reduce the cost of energy... it would generate revenue for the government... it would help reduce our debt... it would directly address the environmental problems we are currently not addressing.
particleman420Jan 15, 2012
but there is no immediate profit in that. It seems that if something doesnt make a profit instantly, it's not worth doing. It's so not worth doing that they will fight anyone that wants to try anyway, for some reason
starmanjonesJan 15, 2012
thats why private industry can't be depended on. if we'd left getting to the moon to business we'd not have gone to the moon.
government money that goes straight to business to do the research end up like solyndra. the business is getting research money not producing a product or you end up with the military industrial complex.
it needs to be a government agency like nasa who have a mission like going to the moon. they contract with private industry and research institutions to design components. thats how it gets done.
i am pretty firmly convinced that the other thing that made nasa sucessful is that the time frame was 10 years. i think we can do anything in 10 years and that fits inside the political turn over. if it spans longer we loose interest.
thats my opinion. i know that free market worshipers just can't accept that government can do it better but there is no evidence to the contrary.
brucealmightyJan 15, 2012
Perhaps more to the point is that Romney probably does not in truth have much idea how many jobs he ever created or destroyed during his career because....well, it was never of much concern to him one way or the other.....all that mattered was how to best squeeze every possible dollar of profit out of the business....people/employees were just incidentals.
arpadJan 15, 2012
As opposed to the magnanimous Democrats who are ever generous with other people's money and are responsible for, along with the Great Depression, now Son of the Great Depression?
Thank you for your compassion and magnanimity Barack Obama. Thank you for helping to destroy trillions of dollars of real estate value and so crash the U.S. economy in way that'll, hopefully, result in your loss of office as it's already resulted in the loss of the House.
Hey stupid, maybe we can resurrect the CCC and pay people with tax money to dig holes and fill them up. Money that could have gone to create real jobs but instead went to make-work programs when it didn't go into the pockets of the corrupt Democrats running the CCC.
Oh wait, that's already happened this time around, hasn't it?
Never mind.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
theunlearnJan 15, 2012
Why do you feel the need to compare Romney's actions in this situation to unrelated actions taken by Obama? Obama's a s**tty president but that doesn't somehow conteract how much of a douchebag Romney is. One of them being bad doesn't make the other good or better. Romney's previous job was to be a douchebag in order to try to turn companies around. Just because there isn't anything legally or even morally wrong with what everyone is calling "vulture capitalism," doesn't mean Romney isn't still a douchebag.
yurmutha412Jan 16, 2012
He was using the number created, but not the number destroyed at first. When people called him out on it, he had to switch to net gain, which only ended up being thousands. It wasn't a direct lie, just one of those statistical truths that get used a lot in elections.
cranelakeJan 14, 2012Submitter
He's the perfect candidate for the fundamentalist right wing. Spent his life destroying working families lives.
All he needs now is to highlight how many wars his rich daddy got him out of and he'll walk the nomination.
kcast985Jan 15, 2012
so how is creating jobs destroying working families lives
cranelakeJan 15, 2012Submitter
Read the article, dude. When you employ someone whose job it is to sack a 1000 people, that's hardly a benefit to society is it?
concusionJan 15, 2012
how dumb are you? There is no one you wouldn't defend as long as they are "conservative" . When did political philosophy become a cult where you have to defend and make lies about someone just because they are in the political party you align yourself with?
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
Consumption is what creates jobs. The people paying for the service/product are the actual job creators. If they don't want the service/product, those jobs go away.
timelessbwJan 15, 2012
When you sack 1000 people, its kind of hard for them to maintain a very high level of comsumption, thus more jobs are lost and comsumption goes down again and again with each new wave. But the corporate raiders are lining their pockets and being "job creators" in third world countries, exploiting child labor.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
Consumption doesn't create jobs.. investment/savings facilitates innovation which creates jobs. Anticipation of future consumption creates jobs. Consuming something that already exists doesn't create jobs - it just means we end up with less of whatever was consumed than what we had before.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I'll revise my statement, because I agree with you that "Anticipation of future consumption creates jobs." Consumption sustains jobs. So sure, the person who innovated/started a new company/what have you, plays a significant role in the inception. But without consumption, that behavior is ultimately pointless. Consuming something that already exists can create jobs: if a company sees greater demand, they may see reason to hire more people to supply their product/service. This is exactly an application of your point that "Anticipation of future consumption creates jobs."
asfinktersezwutJan 16, 2012
With all due respect, I think you have the cart before the horse. "investment/savings facilitates innovation" means little to a company without sales/consumption.
Car dealership; more people buying cars means hiring more salespeople. Check.
Retail; more customers - more sales = hire more people. Check.
Manufacturing; sell more product = demand for greater production = need another shift = hire more people. Check.
In your scenario:
Apple makes a new toy for the sheeple = more sales = more jobs ----> While the investment in R&D may have provided th enew toy and thus the opportunity for more sales being possible, the jobs flow from increased consumption not from the sheer act of "innovation". Capitalism is entirely dependent upon consumption - and consumption. That is why the Consumer Confidence index is one of the most important bell-weathers for economic activity.
http://www.conference-board.org/data/consumerconfidence.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Confidence_Index
amaoicanJan 16, 2012
How does Apple make and release a new toy without investing in R&D, marketing, etc? And more to the point, how does #companywehaveneverheardof create a new toy without investing in offices, staff, equipment, etc etc? That's what I mean by investment - investment in new products, not investment in manufacturing/stocking existing ones.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
amaoicanJan 16, 2012
Okay, I see your point. The new stuff isn't going to be made if there is no perceived market. But generally speaking, I don't think people just blowing money on frivolous things is good for the economy. You could imagine marketing new labor-saving or otherwise cost-saving innovations. I don't know what that would be, and if I did I wouldn't tell you (haha).
But thinking that the key to everything is more consumption, to me, seems wrong. Our economy is already consumption-driven. That's the problem between US and China - they are too investment-driven, we are too consumer-driving. We spend too much of our income on consumption, and they save too much. Over time they'll become more consumer-driven and we'll become less. We must.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
kcast985Jan 15, 2012
who provides the service or product
razorsfuryJan 15, 2012
I know they say not to judge a book by its cover but how can anyone not think that idiot romney and half of the rest of the candidates are douche bags slime that just want to position themselves to be among the most powerful men in the world just by looking at them?
originalspeedysJan 15, 2012
Doesn't this apply to almost all politicians?
We need to replace all of them, in both parties. I don't think the founding fathers envisioned career politicians, I believe the average citizen was to get elected, go serve his fellow countrymen for a short time, then return to his regular job and live his life. Career politicians are the greatest threat to this country.
concusionJan 15, 2012
that coupled with the lobbyist system where the rich buy them off
originalspeedysJan 15, 2012
I think it would be tougher for lobbyists if we had term limits and they had to try and buy off a new politician more often.
theghoulJan 15, 2012
Free market doesnt fix f**king everything. See: The great depression
wilhoitmJan 15, 2012
It is a shame what Romney did to BlueStar Airlines and Teldar Paper!
publiclurkerJan 16, 2012
Blue horseshoe loves Blue Star Airlines
cupofkonaJan 15, 2012
Wary of asswipes who fabricate 'Jobs'. A perfect liar for Prez...
icwydJan 15, 2012
This is great! The conservatives are going to crash and burn. The Evangelicals are supporting Santorum (who is a closet gay) and if Romney (Mr Magic Underwear) wins they will not vote for him in droves.
The only hope for them is to get people to not vote. We all know that if most of the US voted that the conservatives would never win. This is the way it used to be and we can only hope we can get back to that.
barackalypseJan 15, 2012
Conservatives are the largest single ideological group in the US according to Gallup:
"Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal."
http://www.gallup.com/poll/148745/political-ideology-stable-conservatives-leading.aspx
Not that it helps Romney any, he isn't really a conservative, though he's changed some pretty important positions to try and appear that way. The GOP, and thus America in this election (unless the Democrats come up with someone other than Obama), has only one good choice and that is Ron Paul and his unwavering support of the Constitution and disdain for big government.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
icwydJan 16, 2012
Basically this is bologna. The advertising done by the right has made the "less informed" think they are conservative. You have heard about the, "Why do people vote against their best interest?". BTW, very good job of doing that. It is amazing what kind of s**t they are making them believe.
Examples:
Our current president has made the rich, richer.
Our current president has done more for the gun lobby than any other politician.
Our current president has done better for corporations that most others.
Our current president believes in god.
If you are conservative you would believe that all of that is untrue and you would be wrong. Again, very good job of propaganda.
This is all just facts and the GOP will lose and lose bad. I can only hope that it will be a repeat of 7 years ago and they will finally just fall apart along with the tea bagger and ron paul retards.
I will not discount the power of the propaganda machine though. It has served you very well.
chaenomeleJan 16, 2012
What I find most surprising is that anyone believes anything that he says he did. The truth is he will tell the American's whatever they want to hear because he feeds on trends. If that's what you want today, well Romney wants that too, Oh you changed your mind? Hard to change your ethical stance but politicians are special people...
schmuckofniJan 15, 2012
The fact that people are voting for the guy shows the rest of the world that the GOP isn't ready for real change. If it truly was, we would be seeing Ron Paul leading in the polls not this clown.
gianpoJan 15, 2012
Ron Paul would try and destroy this country. If you thought Bush was bad just vote in Ron Paul and you'll really see what bad is.
gianpoJan 15, 2012
Don't get me wrong some of what Paul has to say I love but then he goes into the bats**t crazy ideas and I just can't follow.
realcoolguy9022Jan 15, 2012
This is not the kind of attack to level at him during a primary. He only created X jobs and not Y jobs. So? The number is still quite a few.
The flip-flopping for political expediency, the socialized medicine in his 'home' state, and several other issues is why that even though he's 'winning' the primaries, the response has been very lukewarm for GOP voters. The fact that McCain endorsed this guy just about seals the deal in that this guy might as well be McCain with better hair.
I just don't see voters getting excited to get behind Romney in the general election either. Once you cut through all the sabre rattling that the establishments both do, Obama's policies weren't that different from Bush on most accounts, and if anything Obama is being at least as aggressive on the 'foreign policy' front (undeclared war). Romney's policies don't promise to be all the different from Obama's, which wouldn't have been all that different from McSame's.
Obama and Romney when compared just have slightly different brands of big government, and big regulation to sell us. (Competing between the 40 yard lines) Voters won't trust Romney to not grow spending like Bush did.
What we're witnessing now in the Republican party is the big government GOP establishment running headfirst into a wall of voters who actually WANT a future that isn't completely burdened with debt. When enough people running finally shake out, and a proper critique of Romney is finally debated (hint, Bain Capital has nothing to do with it) Romney will finally be 'rejected' at the polls.
kareemachanJan 15, 2012
So tell us, how many jobs did Romney create overseas?
michaeldonJan 15, 2012
Well he's a politician now. Politicians don't create wealth. At best they just move it around, but usually they just destroy it.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
No one creates or destroys wealth. It's all just "moved around."
michaeldonJan 15, 2012
Entrepreneurs create wealth. In my opinion it's possible to destroy it also by making bad decisions on where it's spent, but that's just me :)Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
Entrepreneurs do not create wealth. To suggest as much implies that wealth is infinite. Do you think everyone on the planet could be very wealthy?
michaeldonJan 15, 2012
That depends on your view of wealth, If you value living in a cave and eating nuts is wealth then nature would create that for you.
If however you consider houses, sushi and Ipads to be wealth those are only created by entrepreneurs. NOT politicians.
My personal view is yes, in a world where everyone was productive everyone could be rich. You don't need to have losers to have winners. For example I could build my own house with my own hands. That makes me wealthy and nobody had to lose from that.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
Houses, sushi, and iPads are produced with the intention of exchanging them for something of value - money/cash. Creating an iPad is not creating wealth. It costs something to produce, and is sold for a profit. Wealth is transferred in this scenario, nowhere created. The workers who get paid to make the iPads transfer their labor into money. Again, no wealth creation, only wealth transfer.
If you build your own house with your own hands, you'd be spending your labor on it (and possibility money for materials). You didn't create any wealth.
michaeldonJan 15, 2012
Sorry, I could not reply to your comment below because of nesting limits.
In your view then an Ipad is no more than the sum of the metal and plastic and energy used to make it. That's where we disagree. I would not pay 600$ for the raw parts and a few kilojoules of energy as I would pay for the finished product. Neither, probably would you. Apple has created wealth by summing these factors of production to make something greater than the sum of the parts.
In the same way a politician very easily can destroy wealth. Keynes advocated digging holes and filling them in again (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:John_Maynard_Keynes#.22The_government_should_pay_people_to_dig_holes_in_the_ground_and_then_fill_them_up..22) just to keep people in jobs and the economy running. According to your logic if I build a house the energy I put in was the cost and the house is the result. Where is the result of the expended energy from digging a hole and refilling it?
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I understand your argument, but disagree that the iPad is "greater than the sum of its parts." An iPad is exactly the sum of its parts; If it wasn't, it wouldn't function. The software and design work that went into the iPad are just as much "parts" as the physical ones. Any time spent on figuring out how that all works together is also a "part." Just because the part isn't tangible doesn't mean it's not there. (Coming from a professional software engineer).
In your example of digging holes and filling them in again, you're not destroying wealth. You're creating a scenario in which the net result is to only transfer wealth. The ground goes from intact, to having a hole, to intact again. No benefit to the ground, although it possibly aerated it a bit. But whoever dug the hole and filled it has been able to transfer their labor into wealth when they might not have otherwise. No wealth destruction, only wealth transfer.
michaeldonJan 15, 2012
Ok Musicman. In your view wealth is nothing to do with the economy (what people pay for stuff). I think you are speaking about the conservation of energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy). If the economy were so simple a physicist would have solved the riddle of how to avoid boom/bust long ago.
Economic wealth is what people will pay for "stuff" as measured by a unit of currency. No more and no less. It has no connection to physics, and I personally think it's a nearly useless measure because it's impossible to capture unknowns like environmental damage when measuring aggregate wealth of the world. But there we are, people use it and we are stuck with it.
Just to get back to the topic, politicians can certainly destroy economic wealth. If it was not the case there would be no point in having good ones.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I think the principle of conservation of energy does naturally extend here. This doesn't make things simple, in fact, the fact that so many entities are a part of this system is exactly what makes it so complicated. (What makes economics so complicated). To say that a physicist could simply apply the notion of conservation of energy and figure everything out (or to imply that I'm suggesting that) is obviously ridiculous.
I think you confuse the creation of impediments and opportunities for wealth transfer to actual destruction and creation of wealth. No one is creating or destroying wealth, though they may obviously be able to affect how easily, and in what manners, wealth is transferred.
michaeldonJan 15, 2012
Ok, let's agree to disagree :)
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
Fair enough :) I'm happy to be shown wrong, but I've yet to find something that really convinces me that wealth creation/destruction happens. Anyone who read this conversation who has some thorough reading on the subject, please present it!
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
I'm afraid Michael is right from an econ perspective. Imagine you own a farm, and you produce twice as much food as you can use. Half of the food is important to you, because you need it to survive. The other half is worthless to you because you can't benefit from it.
But suppose you run across someone who has something else of value - say, the ability to build and repair wooden things. He could build a house and furniture for you and repair them if/when they break, and you can give him food, which he values because he also needs to eat to survive.
Thus, your surplus food, which always existed in some form, becomes more valuable. So matter and energy are conserved, but value is not.
(You could claim that the food always had value and trading it with the other man only allowed you to unlock the value, but that misunderstands what we mean here by 'value'. In any case, once the food goes to waste and rots, it no longer has that value. So whether you say that the ability to trade the food made it valuable, or you say the ability to trade the food allowed us to unlock the value is just language. The underlying truth is the same - labor and trade can make our lives better.)
(In fact, just farming created value - you turned 'worthless' dirt and water into valuable, edible food.)
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I'm afraid I still don't see wealth being created anywhere in your example.
"Thus, your surplus food, which always existed in some form, becomes more valuable. So matter and energy are conserved, but value is not."
I disagree that the food somehow became more valuable. The value of the food was always there to the other party (the handyman or whatever), you were just: ignorant of it, and/or incapable of capitalizing on it.
This is what I meant by suggesting that micheal confused opportunities and impediments to wealth transfer as wealth creation and destruction.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I just noticed that you suggested my argument is invalid, but I don't see you supporting that, just suggesting that it's semantics. The problem is that I consider this a rather significant issue to address, as many people argue that "job creators" or "wealth creators" somehow are deserving of everything they have coming to them, as they "created it." I would appreciate a more substantial rebuttal to my suggestion that the value was always there.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
Yes, I suspected you would claim that in some way the food had value even when we were not utilizing it, which is why I specified that we _could_ go to the trouble of booking the value when the food is created, then booking the loss in value when the food rots. I'm choosing to see 'value' as the total subjective value of the things that everyone owns in their own opinions.
IE, if I have an iPad and I value it at $500, and you would value it at $700, I would book it at worth $500 unless/until you bought it in which case it becomes worth $700.
In essence, everything is worth the maximum amount that the owner would refuse to sell it for, and if someone thinks the owner is wrong, he buys the item and the value increases to whatever amount is the maximum HE would refuse to sell it for.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
Why "the maximum amount at which the owner would not sell the item"? The idea is that if you offered to buy something from me with an amount of money equal to the amount I value the item, I have no reason to make the trade, because I don't benefit from it.
I remember a while back, I was offering to sell a TV on Craigslist for, say, $800. Someone offered me $500, and I declined. He said I was crazy - there was no way the TV was worth $800. I told him that I didn't know why he was getting angry - what he was saying was that he would prefer to have $800 rather than have the TV, and that's exactly how I feel. I would prefer to have $800 rather than have the TV. Further, he was saying he would prefer to have the TV rather than have $500, and I felt the same way. I would prefer to have the TV rather than have $500 as well. So he was getting angry with me for feeling the same way about the TV as I did. I think he saw my point.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
When it comes to letting people reap the benefits of their work, I don't care what philosophical argument you use to justify it. The important thing is, it works. Look at China before liberalization and after - letting people reap the fruits of their labor causes people to work harder, faster and/or smarter and they end up with more fruits. Trying to spread it around equally to everyone creates starvation.
That said, I'm sure there is a happy middle ground where people at the bottom of the income ladder get a little push up, while still allowing people at the top of the ladder to climb as high as their hearts desire.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I'm not suggesting socialism. What I'm suggesting is that some are making an argument to suggest that they deserve more. I'm not necessarily trying to argue the reverse, only to criticize what I consider a flimsy argument.
At this point I don't know what you're arguing. I am contesting that wealth is created. I don't see you providing a particular argument that it is. (not saying you aren't - I just don't see it).Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
I'm arguing that wealth can be created. Suppose I have $20 worth of materials and you have $600. The total value in the system is $620. I 'magically' turn those $20 worth of materials into an iPad, which you value by at least $600. We trade - you get an iPad and I get your $600. Now there's at least $1200 of value in the system - the $600 in cash and the iPad which you value by at least $600.
I created at least $580 worth of value by turning the materials into an iPad.
(I invoke magic in this example so as to avoid having to book the value of the machinery needed to turn the materials into an iPad. If we assume that the machine is just as valuable after producing the iPad as it was before, this should not disrupt the example. If we assume there is some wear on the machine, then we need to account for that loss of value of the machine, but I'm assuming it's negligible.)
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
Just because someone is willing to pay an amount for something does not mean it has that value. Just because someone is willing to engage in an exchance that results in one person profiting, does not constitute a demonstration of creation of wealth, in my view. You didn't create wealth for yourself, you simply created a situation in which you end up with more than you put in.
If I buy land, find that it has natural resources valued beyond my purchase price, and sell it for a profit mean I have created wealth?Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
"Just because someone is willing to pay an amount for something does not mean it has that value."
Assuming freedom and rationality, of course that's what it means. What else could it mean? If you don't think something is worth the price, why would you buy it?
"If I buy land, find that it has natural resources valued beyond my purchase price, and sell it for a profit mean I have created wealth?"
I know it sounds silly, but apparently, yes. I would guess that an economist would tell you the wealth is in the knowledge that the natural resources exist. But that shouldn't surprise you - information obviously has value. Otherwise Google, a tool for finding information, wouldn't be worth billions of dollars.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
It sounds silly because it's absurd. To use such logic to argue anything is ridiculous. If this is what people mean by "creating wealth" then I'll assume their opinion on the matter is next to worthless.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
I don't exactly see you offering an alternative. If you buy a piece of land, then you go to the effort of checking to see if it has any natural resources, and you find that it does, such that the perceived value of the land is greater than it was previously, who do you think should capture the gain? The previous owner? Society as a whole? Society as a whole already had a chance to capture the value of all the land when it privatized the land to begin with.
If you ask me, society as a whole should never have given away and/or sold the land to begin with - we should have sold leases. But society as a whole DID transfer ownership of the land to private hands, so now we have to live with the consequences.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
Why do I need to propose an alternative? I'm not trying to suggest some kind of economic system, simply pointing out this notion of "wealth creation" as what it is - absurd.
My point is that wealth cannot inherently be created. If I buy land, find it has more value, and sell it for a profit, obviously I should get the profit. My point has nothing to do with that. My point is that the profit I receive was not "created." The profit I receive is a transfer of wealth, which in turn is only happening in the hopes that the other party will also profit, again, a transfer of wealth.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
Well, the important thing is that you do recognize that you are wrong and are trying to understand how/why you are wrong. Keep working at it and I'm sure you'll get it in time.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I'm wrong? Your "demonstration" of wealth creation is laughable.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
By the way, if you REALLY want to have your mind blown regarding money and value, check out this podcast from NPR Planet Money regarding The Island of Yap:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-island-of-stone-money
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
Your definition of 'wealth' is laughable ;) What is it, by the way? I have utterly failed to piece it together from our discussion thus far.
We could just be in a Bill Clinton argument (did you have sex with her? no. Aha - but she gave you oral sex? Yes. So you had sex with her? No. "have sex" implies sexual intercourse...)
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I've made no attempt to define wealth, and indeed that may be an issue in any miscommunication going on. But perhaps next time you suggest knowing of someone else's ignorance/validity of their argument, you should not be speaking from a position of ignorance yourself.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying "profit" = "creation of wealth." In such a scenario, one person is paying for the profits of the other. Where is the wealth being CREATED?
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
Another thing I was just thinking about:
To "create wealth" should mean to increase the amount of wealth. But there's clearly some words missing in that - increase the amount of wealth in what? You seem to be thinking the next three words are "in the universe", or at least "in the planet". I would suggest changing this phrase to "in the economy". Sure, you can not physically create a pound of gold (ie, bring a pound of gold into physical existence). But economically, digging a hole and pulling out a pound of gold is a kind of "creating gold". It increase the amount of gold in the economy.
This way of thinking about it might help.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I'm not thinking "in the universe." I am thinking "in the economy." I do not believe that "growing the economy" is creation of wealth. The economy can grow, however, due to increases in opportunity to transfer wealth. Labor (and I don't just mean physical labor) is valuable. Advances in technology that increase the amount of labor that can contribute to the economy can grow the economy - but this is not "created wealth." It is creation of opportunity. A subtle distinction, but so is the idea that atheists do not "believe there is no god." - but some people miss that one completely.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying "profit" = "creation of wealth." "
I don't feel that's what I'm saying, though what I am saying may ultimately be mathematically equivalent (I'd have to think about it).
What I'm saying is that you paying me $500 for my iPad doesn't destroy the $500. That money still exists, and it still has value. And the iPad has value, as evidenced by the fact that you paid for it. So if we start with a situation where all the valuable things in the economy is your $500 and my $20 worth of materials, and I turn those materials into an iPad that you value at $500, you give me the money, I give you the iPad, and now there is $1000 of wealth where there once was $520 of wealth.
If you reject the idea that someone paying money for something proves it is worth the amount of money paid, then yes, this line of argument crumbles. But then you need to explain what your idea of wealth is. You may be defining wealth in such a way that wealth is conserved, in which case we have a linguistic problem only.
MusicManGPJan 15, 2012
I think my reasoning relies on the notion of including labor as a resource.
In your scenario:
Beginning:
Party A) $500
Party B) $20
Total = $520
End:
Party A) $500 iPad
Party B) $500
Total = $1000
What my scenario would look like is this:
Beginning:
Party A) $500
Party B) $20 + ability to labor
End:
Party A) $500 iPad
Party B) $500 - costs of labor
It's the labor part that makes all the difference. If a single person was the laborer, sure, they get all the money. But, my idea is that they have not created wealth, they have transferred their labor into wealth - $480 worth of it.
Subjectivity is allowed, but if we start dividing up that "labor" into everyone involved, it becomes harder and harder to present one individual as the "wealth creator." This is my problem with the notion that wealth is created - we ignore what else goes into the equation - people.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
Well, yes, all wealth comes from labor. We use labor to dig raw materials out of the ground, we use labor to convert those raw materials into refined materials, etc. Labor is the process by which wealth is created. I don't see a problem with that.
It's not that you can't find a person who created the wealth - every person who contributed labor created part of the wealth.
michaeldonJan 15, 2012
Maybe you should have agreed to disagree Amaoican ;)
It's an argument that cannot be won because Musicman is basically saying that kinetic energy + potential energy is a constant and that all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle are there. If someone puts it together or not he sees no difference.You cannot inject intangible concepts like human perception of value into such a framework.
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
You may be right but I was really hoping there was actually something "there", you know? That he had an actual workable theory that was different from the prevailing one.
barackalypseJan 15, 2012
It seems Mittens and Obama have another thing in common, though in Romney's defense at least he didn't use $800+ billion borrowed public dollars to do whatever it was he actually did.
wayzupJan 16, 2012
It's no coincidence that several key campaign contributors to Barack Obama are also top campaign contributors to Mitt Romney...all of the common ones being large banks. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, UBS AG, Morgan Stanley...list goes on but you get the picture.
Romney = Obama Light
hendo420Jan 15, 2012
Don't you mean, Mitt Romney's incredibly small penis?
linuxpersonJan 15, 2012
Hey Obama worshippers, if you don't like Mitt the crony capitalist you'd better be consistent and denounce Obama. Bain Capital and its employees are big Obama donors.
Don't believe me? Bury your head in the sand and don't take 10 seconds to do a google search.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
particleman420Jan 15, 2012
so because THEY support Obama i'm supposed to take it out on HIM?
good old conservative logic.
crymtyphonJan 15, 2012
Okay; I googled.
I got: Mitt Romney's biggest contributor is Bain Capital.
reportedly giving over $2.7 million to the former governor.
http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-providence/mitt-romney-s-biggest-campaign-contributor-bain-capital
I also found that a dummy pac 'W Spann LLC 'had been used by Bain
as a way to funnel more money to the Romney super-pac "Restore Our Future".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restore_Our_Future
Then I found a republican web site siting Rush Limbaugh
citing a Washington Post story that cited a Washington Examiner story
from last October, that said that three employees of Bain
had contributed the total sum of $70,000 to Obama's reelection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restore_Our_Future
Then I kinda laughed.
kareemachanJan 15, 2012
Nice. Succinct. Factual.
Unlike linux.
linuxpersonJan 17, 2012
Vapid. Non-substantive. Ad-hominem.
Exactly like kareemachan.
linuxpersonJan 17, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-has-more-cash-from-financial-sector-than-gop-hopefuls-combined-data-show/2011/10/18/gIQAX4rAyL_story.html
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-raises-more-bain-capital-romney
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/203357-democrats-receive-more-private-equity-cash-than-gop
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/20/obamas-raised-more-money-for-democrats-from-wall-street-donors-than-all-republican-candidates-combined/
Your google kung fu sucks.
crymtyphonJan 17, 2012
Ouchie! a lightning-fast set of google-punches!
You give us the Washington Post article from October,
- and three more links for extra padding.
The WP story is a good one!
They show that last fall Obama got $76,600 from
three Bain Capital employees; as opposed to Romney
getting only a humiliating $34,000 from workers at his old firm.
The Hill article is different but related;
reporting how Democrats have received more
donations from private-equity firms and individuals
in financial jobs, than Republicans have.
The Hot Air web-page is a mere re-chewing for better
digestion, of the WP article.
Then, sadly; you, Rush, and Satan collude
to twist all that into the lie that 'Bain Capital is a big
donor to Obama'.
When in point of fact the Corporation known as Bain
Capital is Mitt Romney's single biggest political
donator.
The 'official' total donated to date: $2.7 million.
And unlike Obama, Mitt isn't even the nominee yet.
That figure does not include the more than $200,000 that
employees and family members from Staples and Pizza Hut
have also contributed to Romney; both of which are Bain
companies.
Nor does it include donations secretly funneled to Romney
like Ed Conrad, (former managing director at Bain) who
donated $1 million via the dummy corporation W. Spann LLC.
Still, You have made two good points:
1) most workers in Financial industries think
Democrats in general and Obama in particular,
are the best choices for a capitalist America.
2) the ability to read what one links to is important to
those who embarrass easily.
linuxpersonJan 20, 2012
"1) most workers in Financial industries think
Democrats in general and Obama in particular,
are the best choices for a capitalist America."
Coincidentally, most workers in the financial industry benefit from crony capitalism, not capitalism.
"2) the ability to read what one links to is important to
those who embarrass easily."
The ability to communicate like an adult is even more important in that regard.
crymtyphonJan 23, 2012
You have no real definition of 'crony capitalism'
except 'business connected to politicians
of whom you do not approve'.
1) Most workers in the finance industry benefit
from the same kind of capitalism as roofers,
programmers, store clerks and farmers.
If you have secret proof otherwise?
- cite it.
And If you have a beter way of communicating,
- then for god's sake use it!
So far all you have done is mix limp insults
about sentence structure with lifeless
affirmations that "Wall Street Loves Obama
and that capitalist lackey Elizabeth Warren".
u2canfailJan 26, 2012
Go apply for a job at Staples or Sports Authority, they hire at minimum wage! It is a job, not a middle class job.
Closed AccountJan 16, 2012
You can tell who the ultra lefties are most scared of.
r0am3rJan 15, 2012
Speaking of shrinking job creation claims, there are 6 million less jobs than when the immaculate Obama took office.
artcJan 15, 2012
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecjohnson/6088811219/lightbox/
razorsfuryJan 15, 2012
way to make a baseless claim jackass...
kaegroJan 15, 2012
artc proved that you are either a lying sac of crap or a stupid ignorant f**k. Which one is it?
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
How can a URL be a lie? It's not a form that can be true or false.
concusionJan 15, 2012
false
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
US Employment January 2009: 131.6 million people
US Aggregate wages January 2009: $5.7 trillion per year
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+Employment+January+2009
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+aggregate+wages+January+2009
US Employment January 2012: 132.7 million people
US Aggregate wages January 2012: $5.7 trillion per year
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+Employment+January+2012
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+aggregate+wages+January+2012
The problem with GOP talking points is that they are never updated, even though reality continues to change, gradually making those talking points old and out of date. In this case, there probably was a time when the net job creation was negative 6 million. But that time has passed.
breadfredJan 15, 2012
What have facts got to do with anything?
amaoicanJan 15, 2012
I know, right? Facts clearly have a liberal bias.