Recovery? 'Where Is My Job?'Experts say the recession has been over for more than a year. "So, where is my job?" ask the unemployed. Tuesday's Colorado Springs Gazette featured a colorful recovery reaction by a Gazette.com reader, published above the flag: "Could someone please notify my bank account and employer that the recession is over and I should have more money now?" Just after the National Bureau of Economic Research declared the recession ended last year, the state reported Tuesday that Colorado Springs-area unemployment rose in August for the fourth straight month, reaching 8.9 percent. President Barack Obama and other politicians say the key to recovery is jobs. Acclaimed Keynesian economist Paul Krugman says if stimulus doesn't work we just need more of it, to create government jobs and private-sector jobs. Keynesian theorists believe if government gives people something to do, and pays them, wages will circulate and stimulate economic growth. Throw in massive currency inflation and low interest, Krugman says, and companies will use cheap loans to invent new jobs for the heck of it. If it's that simple, we need never suffer again. Just print limitless cash, assign jobs and urge banks to lend cheap cash. If fiat currency and stimulus jobs could cause real economic growth, a parent could grow the household income by paying children with IOUs for picking up toys. Jobs do not cause economic growth. Jobs result from growth. Jobs are a byproduct of innovation and production.
Understanding that, we know that economic growth comes in the form of improvements to the human condition. That's why profit is so kind. Currency inflation and easy credit should not be confused as growth. Inflation and redistribution schemes discourage innovation and production, directing currency away from producers of wealth in order to fund production schemes that consumers don't value. If consumers want rooftop windmills, because they improve their lives, then producers of these products won't need subsidies. The only government stimulus that creates jobs is one of minimal taxes, leaving capital in the hands of employers who reinvest earnings into companies the market values. Stimulus jobs do not magically improve the human condition and therefore cannot grow an economy. Hiring workers to build hard-to-sell solar panels, or an overpriced fighter jet, has little potential to boost the economy. A business that uses cheap credit to hire workers, without a corresponding market demand for more production, goes broke. Only production and trade that advance the human condition, by responding to wants and needs of consumers, grow an economy. To stimulate those activities, shrink government and lower taxes. Keynesian stimulus is smoke-and-mirrors. The make-work jobs are like seeds that produce no crop. That's why the public asks: "Growth? Where's my job?" REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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