I was watching TV news the other day, and it dawned on me that I am a "job creator." The future on the American economy rests on my shoulders. For bearing this awesome burden, I am respected, honored, and even pampered. It seems that in times of severe unemployment, like now, the job creators are kings, and I am one of them.
I never thought of myself as a job creator. I practice law from a small office in a tiny suburb of Portland, Oregon. The practice covers my bills and pays the salary of one legal assistant. Law is both my profession and my business. It is the business part, not the profession part, that makes me the job creator.
The building where I work is filled with job creators. There is an accountant down the hall, an insurance guy across the way, and a financial advisor up the stairs. All of us get invited to the mayor's monthly round-table for local businessmen. This seemed rather mundane until I realized that when politicians talk about small businesses being the backbone of America, and the urgent need to protect these important job creators, they are talking about me.
The show I watched had some guy going on and on about how my taxes have to be kept low so that I will use the money I am not paying in taxes to create jobs. I like paying less in taxes. I don't figure my own taxes or keep track of rates and things like that. I pay what my accountant tells me to pay, but it always seems like a lot. if I can save a little on taxes, I am all for it. I also like being the backbone of the America economy. But I will let you in on a little secret. If I am saving money on taxes, I am not going to use it to create jobs.
I hate creating jobs. I have employed several different legal assistants over the last few years. I liked them all as persons, but employing people sucks. New employees take months to train. They need pay, insurance, and a retirement plan. They need sick leave and vacation time, and they never perform quite as well as I think they ought to. If I could do without them altogether, I would. When it comes to things I am willing to do to grow my business, hiring new people is, and will always be, at the very bottom of the list.
I understand from the business pages that while unemployment in this country has stayed high, business profits have been pretty good. That applies to me. I did okay over the last couple of years. I am not rich like TV lawyers (all of whom seem to have only one case), but I have a little money in the office account. I might invest it in my practice, but the last thing I want to invest in is another employee. That would mean contacting the community college, putting an ad in the paper, and then going through the torture of job interviews. There is only one situation in which I would put myself through that: if there were clients pounding on my door for services that I could not provide without more help. That has not happened. I respond to demand, and before I hire a new employee--with all the ugliness that entails--the demand will have to be loud and insistent.
So here I am, a small businessman, one vertebrae in the backbone of the American economy, a job creator, and I have no intention of creating any jobs. I may buy a new bookshelf. I might add to my advertising budget. I might invest in better software, but I don't plan on hiring anybody.
Being that I am not going to create any jobs, I feel I ought to give up the tax breaks or send the money back to the government, but I won't. I am not that good a person. I will keep the money for myself.
I never thought of myself as a job creator. I practice law from a small office in a tiny suburb of Portland, Oregon. The practice covers my bills and pays the salary of one legal assistant. Law is both my profession and my business. It is the business part, not the profession part, that makes me the job creator.
The building where I work is filled with job creators. There is an accountant down the hall, an insurance guy across the way, and a financial advisor up the stairs. All of us get invited to the mayor's monthly round-table for local businessmen. This seemed rather mundane until I realized that when politicians talk about small businesses being the backbone of America, and the urgent need to protect these important job creators, they are talking about me.
The show I watched had some guy going on and on about how my taxes have to be kept low so that I will use the money I am not paying in taxes to create jobs. I like paying less in taxes. I don't figure my own taxes or keep track of rates and things like that. I pay what my accountant tells me to pay, but it always seems like a lot. if I can save a little on taxes, I am all for it. I also like being the backbone of the America economy. But I will let you in on a little secret. If I am saving money on taxes, I am not going to use it to create jobs.
I hate creating jobs. I have employed several different legal assistants over the last few years. I liked them all as persons, but employing people sucks. New employees take months to train. They need pay, insurance, and a retirement plan. They need sick leave and vacation time, and they never perform quite as well as I think they ought to. If I could do without them altogether, I would. When it comes to things I am willing to do to grow my business, hiring new people is, and will always be, at the very bottom of the list.
I understand from the business pages that while unemployment in this country has stayed high, business profits have been pretty good. That applies to me. I did okay over the last couple of years. I am not rich like TV lawyers (all of whom seem to have only one case), but I have a little money in the office account. I might invest it in my practice, but the last thing I want to invest in is another employee. That would mean contacting the community college, putting an ad in the paper, and then going through the torture of job interviews. There is only one situation in which I would put myself through that: if there were clients pounding on my door for services that I could not provide without more help. That has not happened. I respond to demand, and before I hire a new employee--with all the ugliness that entails--the demand will have to be loud and insistent.
So here I am, a small businessman, one vertebrae in the backbone of the American economy, a job creator, and I have no intention of creating any jobs. I may buy a new bookshelf. I might add to my advertising budget. I might invest in better software, but I don't plan on hiring anybody.
Being that I am not going to create any jobs, I feel I ought to give up the tax breaks or send the money back to the government, but I won't. I am not that good a person. I will keep the money for myself.
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Hope this gets more attention with the EP ;).
Rated for the truth hurts.
And I find myself asking where, exactly, do these captains of industry think they will live when the impoverished husk of a 3rd world nation collapses around them?
In all reality, the politicians should listen to folks like you. I think their rhetoric is just that. Their campaign contributors also know that they aren't "job creators," and are just whitewashing themselves as such, because they want tax breaks.
Look at it this way, though. If you have more money to invest in your business, don't you buy a few more products, like you said, maybe a new bookshelf? Doesn't that add to the overall demand level of the economy concerning shelf makers? If you eat more varied foods due to your smarts and business acumen, won't you be creating one more demand point in the agricultural arena?
So as long as your business isn't stymied, and you continue to do well; well enough to increase your own salary and that of your one legal assistant, then both of you (and by extension, your families who directly benefit from this increase in disposable income) act as one more point of demand for improving the economy, right?
See? You could actually be a job creator without ever having to hire a single soul. The fact that your business grows with the demand for the service it supplies, then you could be creating jobs in businesses that supply your demands.
It's all in how you inspect the picture and learn to admire the frame in which it's placed.
-r-
-Darwin, The Origin of Species
how's that working out?
like your honesty:"if I am saving money on taxes, I am not going to use it to create jobs"
darwin, did he have a job?
i love darwin but not his idiot followers.
like those neodarwinists.
seems there is evidence that in the damn primeval soup
we got the impetus
for a mix
of
symbiogenesis.
and
competition.
both.
come closer, lemme eat you up, make you into
a mitochondria or chloroplast, see what you can do for me.
darwin said survival of the fittest. what is survival?
of a species. that is not
my focus.
nor yours.
so what.
let us focus on being good.
true. beautiful.
then the damn jobs will fall out of the sky. new stuff.
R
But neither of the above effects necessarily happens with big corporations...who, or so I read, are indeed just socking it away.
The bitter truth about the Republican policy is that it won't stimulate the economy AT ALL because there was no tax cut. The maximum effective tax rate is still 35%. That's called a steady state, and a steady state reinforces the status quo. However, giving someone who earns $100,000 another $500 doesn't to as much as giving 100 people who earn $20,000 another $50 each. The $100,000 earner is more likely to simply leave the money in the bank, while the $20,000 earner is more likely to spend the $50 on an extra tank of gas, if there is such a thing.
All your words ring true but contra your overzealous admirers are not dispositive on the subject of tax policy or job creation. Nor are you "speaking truth to power" or anything of that sort. Many, many economists (some nobel laureates even) have found merit in supply side economics. That you choose not to go out of your way to grow business is up to you and you are not to be faulted for following your bliss and doing what you perceive to be in your own interest. But the point is, and here the GOP rhetoric could improve, is that YOU get to decide what to do with that money. You may not be overly entrepreneurial yourself but others in your profession may be, they may invest in expansion, branch out to another segment, etc.
So take your money and send it to the IRS, to a charity, buy a new car, stock, gold, or hire someone to mow your lawn. I will stipulate the YOU (dear sir) know what to do with the money much better than the Feds.
Not sure why you are so sure "businesses only create jobs when there is demand. " Was there a demand for an iPad before Apple created one, was there a demand for Avatar 3D (a very successful film) before James Cameron made it. Look at high budget motion picture flops; why were they created if there was apparently no demand. Sure, maybe divorce attorneys cannot created a supply of product, but that is a service not a good. Of course, there are inter-dependencies such that a supply of product cannot be moved without causing a demand, but the point is that supply often creates demand. Another example, Beanie Babies, Tickle-me-Elmo, and the like. Mr. Onken comes close to speculating how he could increase his business, but in the end (HE and this is just HIM, he cannot speak for every individual of his and other professions) decides he will only respond to the demand based on his existing supply. His supply is his current office and the clients such as he causes by his advertising profile (word of mouth, etc.) Mr. Onken could open another location at which he could hire another assistant (this may not on aggregate create more demand and he might cannibalize his own or the trade of others -- but, who knows) Again, the fact is that his having hung out his shingle somewhere caused a demand for HIS supply. I doubt a horde of clients met him upon his Law School graduate or as he received his Bar results in the mail.
Darwin did not have a job. Darwin was rich. How did he get rich? He married it. Mrs. Darwin was a China heiress....Wedgwood I believe. How else could he talk his way onto the HMS Beagle to support his bird-watching?
Thanks for the candid article. You confirmed what I already thought about the tax cuts for businesses. They will go to retained earnings, not to creating jobs. I wish it were different Instead of tax cuts, why don't we have incentives to hire people, especially those poor folks who have been out of work 6 months or more. (Like the majority of those unemployed in Michigan.) Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder gave HUGE tax cuts to businesses & decreased funding for K-12 education as well as colleges (despite a huge surplus in the school aid fund), made senior's pensions taxable, etc. I signed his recall petition. It's time he was unemployed.
Thanks for the candid article. You confirmed what I already thought about the tax cuts for businesses. They will go to retained earnings, not to creating jobs. I wish it were different Instead of tax cuts, why don't we have incentives to hire people, especially those poor folks who have been out of work 6 months or more. (Like the majority of those unemployed in Michigan.) Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder gave HUGE tax cuts to businesses & decreased funding for K-12 education as well as colleges (despite a huge surplus in the school aid fund), made senior's pensions taxable, etc. I signed his recall petition. It's time he was unemployed.
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