How Obama, Romney, Perry distort jobs record
Plus a link to Gingrich backers' anti-Romney, anti-capitalist video
How Obama, Romney, Perry distort jobs record
Joseph N. DiStefano
"Romney’s campaign asks us to believe that every job created in Massachusetts while he was governor was Romney’s doing... Romney also claims that every job created by any company that Bain Capital LLC had a hand in should also be credited to Romney... Heads, I created a job; tails, you lost one," writes Ezra Klein for Bloomberg News.
"The Obama campaign isn’t much better. They want credit for every job created, but not for every job lost...
"Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign, meanwhile, assigns Obama responsibility for every job lost nationwide, but Perry gets credit for every job created in Texas. Neat trick...
"To buy much of this requires you to hold deeply ridiculous beliefs about the American economy: "You must believe that Obama bears responsibility for events that predate his presidency and deserves applause for the demand created by aging cars and worndown machinery. You must believe that Congress, which controls fiscal policy, and the Federal Reserve, which controls monetary policy, bear little or no responsibility for the economy, but that the president, who controls neither fiscal nor monetary policy, is the primary driver of job creation...
"Virtually no one really believes these things. But partisans and the news media routinely act as if they are true." Read Klein's full column here. Separately, here's the anti-capitalist attack ad sponsored by the pro-Newt Gingrich fund, www.winningourfuture.com It's full of cheap shots, using a cast of sad heavy drawling blue-collar Americans (and, at one point, a voice-over that sounds like an uncredited Rush Limbaugh) to blame Romney's Bain Capital for decades of US industrial decline.
But Romney can't escape the fact he and his partners extracted fortunes from companies that collapsed soon after they left, leaving workers, suppliers, customers, other investors busted. Austrian School economist Joseph Schumpeter would understand, but it can only look like classic rich-robbing-the-poor exploitation to a lot of voters. Maybe the most significant thing about the ad is the way even mainstream Republicans are turning on capitalism in an attempt to exploit the anger of unemployed and underemployed Americans -- and are willing to bad-mouth and sacrifice the American business establishment that feeds our political elites, in their personal attempts to win power.
Like any of this really matters. President Obama is committed to the improvement of this country. Evidence of this commitment can be found in his meeting today with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Very valuable. This three person think tank is, without a doubt, tackling some tough issues. I'm sure by the end of the meeting a program will be in place that uses student loan interest revenue to fund a Hatian adoption/save the reptiles program. I think he meets with Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon tomorrow. Conference call with Michael Moore Monday morning.— CornerPretzelGuy
There has been a theocratic misdirection on the part of the republicans who now use the term "creation" when they just used to say, get the economy moving again, or some less exalted term. The holy writ of capitalism from the good book of Adam Smith is the revelation of truth about production. Creation was meant for the more abstract conceptualization of making something from nothing. Only God almighty was the Creator, now job creators abound, god-men entrepreneurs who walk among mere mortals and create for them their jobs. Like some shamanic power over the forces of life and death, the job creators need a sacrifice in order for them to perform the holy ritual of capital formation and conjure up enterprises that produce real jobs that will stand the test of time. Like buggy whip maker, rail road engineer and steel worker. These are real jobs, creations of the job creators who need the sacred tax loophole in order for them to work their magic. But heretics, unbelievers, who believe salvation comes from work, and not the supply side, do not understand. Governments produce no jobs, their intervention into the holy land of the economy is abomination, their jobs, mere shadows on the walls. The millions on their payrolls, providing bank robbery protection from the FBI, or weather predictions or even agricultural research to control pests and boost crops are mere superstitious jobs without merit. Only jobs where you can be fired after the sacred creative destruction ritual of Merger and Acquisition, as practiced by the thrice blessed Romney of the Bain Clan, are true jobs. Government jobs once conjured up, never seem to go away. And they are cursed with demons that attach themselves never to be banishes, the pension and the health benefit. Only true job creators can create true jobs. Thus it is written, and ever shall be, profits without end.
