Destroying the Bullsh*t Fantasy of ‘Job Creators’ in America
By: Patrick Tompkins
Tags: Leadership, Election 2020, Government, Politics, Coronavirus

Another round of potential coronavirus relief was making its way through the United States government, fighting for a pre-election day passing. But with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and Mitch McConnell choosing to adjourn the Senate until November 9th, Republicans again chose politics over the American people's well-being.

We are heading into our 9th month of the pandemic. Cases are once again hitting record numbers. Hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus are also on the rise. Winter is coming, and instead of worrying about White Walkers, we will have to worry about white body bags.

Aside from the $1,200 one time stimulus check and the boosted unemployment benefits that expired back in July, the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, from a fiscal perspective, has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.

The greatest country in the world is so rife with corruption and nepotistic behavior within its government that we couldn’t even rise to the occasion during a once in a century pandemic that badly needed us to do so. The system is broken. You broke it. And now we need to fix it.

The Let Down So Far

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, approximately $4.7 trillion was allocated for coronavirus response thus far between the government's executive and legislative branches. $2.8 trillion has actually been disbursed in some fashion.

In addition to the federal response, the Federal Reserve allocated $7.2 trillion for the coronavirus response. However, thus far, they have distributed just $2.4 trillion, almost all of which was spent on quantitative easing, increasing the money supply by purchasing U.S. Treasury-backed securities and mortgage-backed securities to support the economy.

Of the more than $5.2 trillion already disbursed for the coronavirus pandemic, less than $750 million was given to the American people directly, either through the $1,200 one time stimulus check or by boosting unemployment benefits and increasing access to food stamps temporarily.

On the other hand, companies and corporations were given trillions of dollars, most of the remaining $5.2 trillion, with little to no oversight. Money meant to assist the American people indirectly. Still, from what we have seen, it has been used to fleece the government via fraud or line the stock portfolios of these companies and billionaires even more.

The Myth

Supply-side economics, or trickle-down economics, is the process in which you reduce taxes and regulations on business as a means to spur job creation and expansion of industry—a deeply flawed concept. Starting in the early 1900s, more and more conservative politicians latched onto this idea tightly. And it made their friends very rich.

“[Republicans] are so busy operating the trickle-down theory, giving the richest corporations the biggest break, that the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket.” — President Lyndon B. Johnson

Later on, Ronald Reagan came along with his charismatic conservatism and juiced the system into the stratosphere. Reaganomics cemented the path of the American system of doing business, busting unions, and ensuring company leadership would reap most of the benefits of a more productive world. Average American income has never caught up.

All of this is predicated on the myth that companies are job creators. They aren’t. Companies are job reactors. The people, the masses, they provide the demand for a job to exist. Without demand, a job and a business would cease to exist.

Companies exist to satiate demand. That’s it. Jobs are created for business owners to multiply their profits. 1 human unit for 1.5 profit units. Bullshit altruism aside, companies’ first and only goal is to make money. Providing someone with a job is purely transactional.

The moral feel-goods of giving someone a job opportunity is a byproduct. In human history, no company owner has ever given someone a job anticipating they would make less money. They did it to exchange their employee’s human capital for more profits, creating a multiplier effect.

The problem is, since the mid-1900s, that exchange of human capital for profits has become more and more imbalanced, resulting in a degradation of the middle class of America.

The Fix

The truth is jobs aren’t pushed into existence by companies and billionaires. They are pulled into existence by the masses demanding a product or service. Someone must first want something for another person to have a job providing that product or service to them.

And that demand only exists if people have the means to afford it. I want a Playstation 5. I have enough money after food, shelter, and paying my bills to afford one. My buying of this Sony product, along with millions of other Americans who will be buying Sony products, create a demand that pulls the jobs necessary to produce these products into existence.

When people have money to spend, they spend it. And when they spend it, they create demand for products and services that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

The United States, through its corruption and failed economic beliefs, destroyed any possible chance at an acceptable response to the coronavirus pandemic. They did this by failing to understand one simple reality: all they have to do was give people money. Money to spend in their local economy. On a large, systemic scale.

The $1,200 stimulus check cost the U.S. government $292 billion. Imagine if the government took the money they’ve already spent and instead allocated it to the American people for 1 year.

12 months of $1,500 stimulus checks to every single adult American. That would have cost the government $4.5 trillion. Less than what they have spent so far already ($5.4 trillion). Long enough to wait out a vaccine without a vast majority of the country falling into insurmountable personal debt.

And a majority of that money would have gone directly back into the local economy. It would have been spent at restaurants on take-out, upgrading their homes, shopping at their local markets and grocery stores, or adapting to attending school at home.

Consumer spending would have remained steady, keeping companies running, jobs in demand, and every American a means of feeding their families.

Sometimes less is more, and the simplest answer is the right answer. If the United States government was actually interested in helping the American people through this pandemic, they could have made this one decision, and it would have changed everything.