Virginia Republican LG candidate Pete Snyder loves to fancy himself as a “jobs creator” who “built that” all by himself (e.g., he gives ZERO credit to the education system that provides skilled workers, the military that defends the country, the police and firefighters who keep businesses and the rest of us safe, etc, etc.). Well, here’s a video that Snyder should watch – a TED talk by a guy who’s created a LOT more businesses than Snyder ever will, yet who comes to a completely different conclusion than Snyder does about who the real “job creators” are. Check it out.
I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.
That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a “circle of life” like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me.
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[O]ur current policies are … upside down. When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.
Since 1980, the share of income for the richest Americans has more than tripled while effective tax rates have declined by close to 50%.
If it were true that lower tax rates and more wealth for the wealthy would lead to more job creation, then today we would be drowning in jobs. And yet unemployment and under-employment is at record highs.
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