Quote :

"He wants to give businesses a $5,000 tax credit for each net new employee they hire this year. "

hurray for artificial job growth!



I would've liked this better if it was charge companies 5000 for each person they don't hire based on som esort of profit:average income in the industry ratio.

1/29/2010 7:57:30 AM

yes, $5000 is clearly enough to offset the tens of thousands of dollars that a new employee costs.

1/29/2010 8:25:52 AM

clearly the intention is not to offset the entire cost

also the image in your gallery is way out of context. not cool. i wasnt even talking to froshkiller

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 8:36 AM. Reason : .]

1/29/2010 8:35:21 AM

We need to stop giving out tax credits like this. We already don't have enough tax money coming in to pay the bills. If you give out tax credits, it's just going to make that problem worse. If government spending was cut enough to allow us to run a budget surplus, that would be another situation entirely.

1/29/2010 8:38:00 AM

Quote :

"I would've liked this better if it was charge companies 5000 for each person they don't hire based on som esort of profit:average income in the industry ratio."

Are you fraking insane? You want to punish companies for improving their productivity? Did you enjoy medieval life so much that you want to inflict all future generations with the same?

1/29/2010 12:12:57 PM

i've come up with the perfect and complete economic plan and you would understand the point if you knew my plan. You can pm if you want to hear it.

1/29/2010 12:15:20 PM

Quote :

"We need to stop giving out tax credits like this. We already don't have enough tax money coming in to pay the bills. If you give out tax credits, it's just going to make that problem worse. If government spending was cut enough to allow us to run a budget surplus, that would be another situation entirely."

Well, if they hire a person because of the $5k tax credit, and that person pays 25% of their income in taxes, that amount is > $5k. Not to mention that person will have income to purchase goods, which they will pay sales tax, creates demand, etc. Also the govt doesn't have to pay unemployment benefits for that person.

1/29/2010 12:21:47 PM

but if the companies productivity is already maxed out they have no reason to hire someone else unless they already have demand. the reason we have unemployment is there is not enough demand, not that there are not enough companies out there to hire people.

1/29/2010 1:33:40 PM

We could start getting jobs back overnight by eliminating the minimum wage. There are plenty of people unemployed right now that could find work for $4/hour. Now, the argument is "but that's not enough money!" Well, is it better than no money? Because, as it stands right now, if someone is starting to work with no experience, the first few rungs of the ladder are knocked out by the government.

1/29/2010 1:36:29 PM

Quote :

"Are you fraking insane? You want to punish companies for improving their productivity? Did you enjoy medieval life so much that you want to inflict all future generations with the same?"

Your reaction here isn't unfounded. Granted, companies should be trying to increase profits relative to the # of employees they have, just as they should be trying to increase profits relative to everything they have.

However, this perspective fails to give any attention to the other side of the argument. After all, how can we have a $13 trillion GDP while at the same time >10% unemployment? Because value added becomes so concentrated in certain sectors.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-google-revenue-dollar-per-employee-2010-1



Our star companies are all trying to maintain astronomically high revenue to employee ratios. At the same time this junk is happening, people are bashing Google for not supporting its office software enough (see: labor investment) and we're all suffering from record high unemployment. Perhaps our corporate leaders just have no concept of the externalities of their boneheaded hiring policies.

Ivory towers leave a lot of people unemployed on the street

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 1:41 PM. Reason : ]

1/29/2010 1:41:14 PM

Quote :

"We could start getting jobs back overnight by eliminating the minimum wage. There are plenty of people unemployed right now that could find work for $4/hour. Now, the argument is "but that's not enough money!" Well, is it better than no money? Because, as it stands right now, if someone is starting to work with no experience, the first few rungs of the ladder are knocked out by the government."

Once again you make a very good philosophical point, but one that is not very pragmatic. I'm not going to argue the should and shouldn'ts of the behavior, but the majority of people would not work for $4 an hour regardless of their employment status. i submit for example people who lose high paying jobs and continue to collect unemployment instead of receiving some low paying job. additionally, minimum wage serves to minimize the social safety net known as welfare. Few would choose to work for a minimum wage that would net them substantially less than they could receive from welfare alone. the situation is never as simple as people who are not working would gladly take any work offered. this is true regardless of class and color.

1/29/2010 3:17:55 PM

Quote :

"the reason we have unemployment is there is not enough demand, not that there are not enough companies out there to hire people."

Begging the question. It is a centuries old debate whether demand drives production or production drives demand. To the best of my knowledge, this debate has never been settled, as both eventualities are still taught in class. The only explanation I have ever heard that could be considered definitive is the perspective that 'it depends'. Some growth is demand driven, some growth is production driven, depending on various variables (slopes of demand/supply curves, etc). Whichever it is, a recession would kill both: investors are unwilling to invest, shoppers are unwilling to shop.

Quote :

"After all, how can we have a $13 trillion GDP while at the same time >10% unemployment? Because value added becomes so concentrated in certain sectors...Perhaps our corporate leaders just have no concept of the externalities of their boneheaded hiring policies."

Productivity is not theirs to keep. As productivity improves and they fire workers, those salaries do not go away; in the short term, it is declared profits and either the company can invest it elsewhere, throw it in the bank to be invested elsewhere for them, or return it to investors as dividends for them to spend/invest. As such, short of burning the money, it will go to employ people elsewhere in the economy. In the long term, however, this productivity leads to economic growth, as cheaper production leads to lower prices, increased production, and ultimately lower profits.

1/29/2010 3:18:23 PM

Tax credits for businesses? What kind socialist sh*t is this?

1/29/2010 5:35:09 PM

Quote :

"We could start getting jobs back overnight by eliminating the minimum wage. There are plenty of people unemployed right now that could find work for $4/hour. Now, the argument is "but that's not enough money!" Well, is it better than no money? Because, as it stands right now, if someone is starting to work with no experience, the first few rungs of the ladder are knocked out by the government"

Yeah right.....$4/hr would not even offset the cost of the additional fuel it takes most people to drive to work. When I had no job I saved at least $80-$100 a week in fuel costs by not driving anywhere besides food lion.

1/30/2010 10:51:51 AM

Wait, so just because you would not bother to use the human right to contract at that wage rate, it should be illegal for others to do so?

Also, the poor have ways. Some low-paid jobs pick you up at home. Some workers take the bus or car-pool with other workers on the same job.

[Edited on January 30, 2010 at 4:37 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/30/2010 4:35:55 PM

Shit, I thought this thread was about GM / Chrysler / AIG / Goldman Sachs / incompetent homeowners / the unemployed / NCLB / Unions / . . .

1/30/2010 11:32:32 PM