Mitt Romney is running on his record as a really rich guy who created lots and lots and lots of jobs. How many? That depends on when you ask, but for the sake of sanity let's just say he claims lots.
But back in March at the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference in Long Beach, California attendees heard something wonktastically different. Nick Hanauer, one of the founding investors of Amazon gave an eyebrow-raising talk that casts quite a bit of doubt on Mitt Romney's biggest campaign asset — that the rich are super-awesome at creating jobs.
Watch Hanauer's remarks in the clip above and catch the Amazon co-founder tonight in a Last Word exclusive.
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YES, THE RICH ARE THE JOB CREATORS! If you don't think so, obviously you're not a business person, just another envious, jealous paid troll !!!
you're a moron & the reason why this country is in the trouble it's in. Get a clue
Listen, I'm not the one who accumulated $6T in added debt in only 4 yrs. Who's the moron now?
So, here's a self-made, entrepreneurial, multi-millionaire saying the wealthy are NOT the job creators, but YOU know better. The only ones claiming there is no income inequality and that the wealthy need as much of our tax dollars, and our loss of social services, as they can get, are the Republican hierarchy, who are the only ones who benefit from that agenda. Doesn't that seem suspicious to you? We've been living with that, self-same, policy since Bush passed the tax cuts for the wealtiest Americans and Corporations, yet look where we are. Seeing is believing. Only the deaf, dumb and blind would be able to miss the truth of it all.
You are also wrong about what Obama has added to the debt. Why not open your mind and expand your knowledge--read an article from the Washington Post:
It doesn't definitively state exactly how much President Obama's policies have added to the deficit, because it isn't possible to calculate that, since many of Bush's policies continue to figure into the equation.
So, Cindy.....
Are you saying that Nick Hanauer, who has been the creator or major principal in dozens of companies, is not a business person, but another envious, jealous paid troll???
Do you have ANY idea how ridiculous you sound?
The article:
Doing the math on Obama's deficits
By Ezra Klein,
The campaign trail can be a lonely place, so Mitt Romney frequently invites
friends to accompany him. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is an occasional
companion. So is Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. But more often, Romney brings a
large clock.
Romney’s people made it themselves. It has two giant flat-screen televisions
pushed side by side. It’s surrounded by a green foam sign. And it’s hooked to
two computers feeding it a live count of America’s rising debt burden, which
stands well above $15 trillion. The clock represents President Obama’s economic
failures. It’s there so Romney can point to it and tell the crowd that if he’s
elected, he’ll “do a better job slowing down that clock.” But if you’re a
deficit-obsessed voter, the clock doesn’t answer the key question: How much has
Obama added to the debt, anyway?
There are two answers: more than $4 trillion, or about $983 billion. The
first answer is simple and wrong. The second answer is more complicated but a
lot closer to being right.
When Obama took office, the national debt was about $10.5 trillion. Today,
it’s about $15.2 trillion. Simple subtraction gets you the answer preferred by
most of Obama’s opponents: $4.7 trillion.
But ask yourself: Which of Obama’s policies added $4.7 trillion to the debt?
The stimulus? That was just a bit more than $800 billion. TARP? That passed
under George W. Bush, and most of it has been repaid.
There is a way to tally the effects Obama has had on the deficit. Look at
every piece of legislation he has signed into law. Every time Congress passes a
bill, either the Congressional Budget Office or the Joint Committee on Taxation
estimates the effect it will have on the budget over the next 10 years. And then
they continue to estimate changes to those bills. If you know how to read their
numbers, you can come up with an estimate that zeros in on the laws Obama has
had a hand in.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was kind enough to help me come up
with a comprehensive estimate of Obama’s effect on the deficit. As it explained
to me, it’s harder than it sounds.
Obama, for instance, is clearly responsible for the stimulus. The health-care
law, too.
When Obama entered office, the Bush tax cuts were already in place and two
wars were ongoing. Is it fair to blame Obama for war costs four months after he
was inaugurated, or tax collections 10 days after he took office?
So the center built a baseline that includes everything that predated Obama
and everything we knew about the path of the economy and the actual trajectory
of spending through August 2011. Deviations from the baseline represent
decisions made by the Obama administration. Then we measured the projected cost of Obama’s policies.
In two instances, this made Obama’s policies look more costly. First, both
Democrats and Republicans tend to think the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax
cuts is a quirky budget technicality, and their full extension should be
assumed. In that case, voting for their extension looks costless, and they
cannot be blamed for the resulting increase in deficits. I consider that a
dodge, and so I added Obama’s decision to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years
— at a total cost of $620 billion — to his total. If Obama follows through on
his promise to extend all the cuts for income under $250,000 in 2013, it will
add trillions more to the deficit.
The other judgment call was when to end the analysis. After 10 years? After
the first term? We chose 2017, the end of a hypothetical second term. Those are
the years Obama might be blamed for, so they seemed like the ones to watch. But
Obama’s spending is frontloaded, and his savings are backloaded. The stimulus
bill, for instance, is mostly finished. But the Budget Control Act is expected
to save $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. The health-care law is expected to
save more than a trillion dollars in its second decade. If our numbers were
extended further, the analysis would have reflected more of Obama’s planned
deficit reduction.
There’s also the issue of who deserves credit for what. In this analysis,
anything Obama signed is attributed to Obama. But reality is more complicated.
The $2.1 trillion debt-ceiling deal wouldn’t have happened without the
Republicans. But a larger deficit-reduction deal — one including tax increases
and spending cuts — might have.
In total, the policies Obama has signed into law can be expected to add
almost a trillion dollars to deficits. But behind that total are policies that
point in very different directions. The stimulus, for instance, cost more than
$800 billion. So did the 2010 tax deal, which included more than $600 billion to
extend the Bush tax cuts for two years, and hundreds of billions more in
unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut. Obama’s first budget increased
domestic discretionary spending by quite a bit, but more recent legislation has
cut it substantially. On the other hand, the Budget Control Act — the
legislation that resolved August’s debt-ceiling standoff — saves more than
$1 trillion. And the health-care reform law saves more than $100 billion.
For comparison’s sake, using the same method, beginning in 2001 and ending in
2009, George W. Bush added more than $5 trillion to the deficit.
What is often assumed in this conversation is that all deficit spending is
equal and all of it is bad. That’s not the case. Deficit spending when the
economy is growing is different from deficit spending when the economy is in
crisis.
Nor is all deficit reduction alike. Sometimes, cutting the deficit will
expand the economy. Sometimes, cutting the deficit will shrink the economy.
Which brings up some other questions Romney’s clock can’t answer: What number we
should see on it now? And when, and how fast, should it start slowing down?
That will be the subject of next week's article
Susan 3931797,
Nick Hanaeur is an idiot. He's just an investor, a stockholder and a very bad business person at that. In a nutshell, the rich (JOB CREATORS) can still create jobs even if there is no product or customers or customer demand. because they have the capital and means to do so. They can afford to hire more people even if the business is at a loss. However the middle class and the poor cannot, simply because they don't have the resources. They don't create jobs, they want jobs. They are just part of buying and selling, supply and demand chain process. You take a survey out of the street and ask some really smart business people, 8 out of 10 will tell you THE RICH ARE THE JOB CREATORS. I know, I happen to be one.
Cindy, that is the most idiotic thing I've ever read. "The rich can create jobs...can hire more people even if the business is at a loss...." That may be technically true but only a moron would do that. It's like saying "The rich have lots of money and therefore can throw it from helicopters in big bushel baskets onto the streets below." Well, yes, they could. But they don't. And why would they? So you claim to be rich. Do you hire people irrespective of customer demand for your product? Do you hire people even as the business is losing money? If so, you won't be rich for long!
Bwa ha ha! You're a filthy rich job creator, here arguing for filthy rich job creators? Ridiculous. Go home troll.
Cindy - you say "the rich are job creators. I know I happen to be one", which is implying that you've been able to hire some people.... good.... Would you say that the number of people that you've been able to hire is proportional to your wealth, or did your company(s) hire to fill a near-term need? The argument that "the rich are job creators" flies in the face of the fact that we wealthy people are wealthy because we have learned how to hang onto our money and that which we spend is done so with discretion (theoretically we have some smarts). And flagrantly allowing companies that we own to hire indiscriminately is not typical behavior. Thus the skepticism with regards to the statement. My ability to create jobs coexists with the strength of the economy and the ability for consumers to purchase goods and services... By myself I cannot be a job creator, rich or not. The job issue is bigger than that.
Nice bit of misdirection; certainly those with massive resources at their disposal could create jobs regardless of customer demand. However, since labor is actually a cost associated with running a business, it makes little sense (and in fact, would be fairly ignorant) for a business owner to do so without any expectation of being able to make a profit from the selling of additional goods/services, since said action would result in a net decrease in profitability.
This isn't hard to grok; your basic college-level Econ 101 course covers this sort of stuff.
Cindy - Your rich, your claiming your a job creator. Do tell. How many jobs have you added in the last few years to help your fellow American citizens stay off the social safety net, all the while enjoying those small profits? After all, you said you could afford to hire more people 'even if the business is at a loss'.
Have any of your job-creating, rich acquaintances added unnecessary employees just to help out Americans in need? Are you doing your part as an American to sustain this country through this economic peril? I doubt it.
Please move to Singapore, a country with more millionaires & billionaires per capita than any other. Oh yeah, leave your citizenship at the door. A traitor doesn't just aid the enemy, they selfishly help themselves at the expense of their country and their countrymen.
In a service economy consumers play a large role in keeping the economy moving. It's only fair to point out that consumer shopping habits will directly affect job creation. When a consumer goes to a store and buys widget A made in China over widget B made in the USA because it costs less they are sending a message directly to manufacturer clearly stating that they want cheaper products made overseas. The manufacturer that moves thrives, the one that stays dies. If you're going to embrace the idea that consumers create jobs then you must also accept responsibly for driving those jobs overseas.
Cindy is rich but is always whining about the price of gas...
I'm poor, and gas prices affect my work and lifestyle far more profoundly. Of course I've got a better memory than she does about what happened during the Bush 43 Administration (where they raised our meter rates for fuel costs, which, unfortunately, caused more customers to use public transportation when they could).
There's a lesson here somewhere...
Cindy - I'm delighted to know that you are rich - we can all tell that you have influence - since you are allowed to type in all caps and bold while the "little people" like us are blocked by nasty software. I find retirement boring - send me $60,000 and I will write your posts for you for an entire year. I can copy any style and have a large database of the most popular conservative phrases used on MSNBC blogs to put silly liberal posters in their place. Hopefully you will let me write in the style of my good comrade mikafromcommierussian -
Sadly - jobs do not come from rich people and corporations but from non-rich people with a little disposable income. Rich corporations are not charities - they will only create jobs when they cannot meet the actual or forecast demand for their product. Then they may create those jobs overseas instead of the USA. Large corporations like big tax breaks - it improves their profit margins and bonuses which they save. They do not hire more people just because they have more money. Interesting problem - if working people had better jobs or if those who are unemployed could find good paying jobs - they would spend more money increasing demand - creating more jobs making the rich even richer. It would appear that the rich are rich enough.
If posters on this blog should send you requests to post twice as often (increase in demand) you might send me $60,000 (creating a new job) just to make Revolution and Cabbie happy. Of course I will not spend the money - I will save it. Just as soon as I have enough money, I will become a Socialist.
@Cindy-3358832, RE: (Comment #1.2)
If you're attempting to pin all of that increase on Obama, you're sorely mistaken. A significant amount of that $6T was added to the debt almost instantaneously when Obama directed the accounting skulduggery behind the Bush-Cheney decision to not put the cost of the wars against Afghanistan & Iraq on the books. That debt already existed, it was in hiding. Additionally, the Bush tax cuts to the rich of '01 & '03 weren't paid for, so they continue adding to the debt. If the Senate Republicans had not held Obama hostage during the lame duck session of Congress in '10, the tax cuts to the rich would have ended in '11 - so that's more Bush-43 policy still adding to the deficit. (While unemployment benefits pay for themselves, tax cuts to the wealthy don't, because they have no need to spend that extra money. On the other hand, tax cuts to those who live paycheck to paycheck will come a lot closer to paying for themselves.
It's a well known economic fact that the closer the median and average incomes are to each other in any population that constitutes a Market, the higher the demand will be, for those on the lower end of the economic ladder will have more discretionary income with which to buy things they don't need but would like to have. And the rich will still get richer. Not as fast, but it will be market-driven income in a growing economy that's accumulating additional capital along the way, with a greater ratio of capital to interest than in a market like the US currently has, where the income distribution is so radically skewed towards the very rich. That makes for a stagnant economy where the rich continue getting richer almost exclusively from interest income - because an overwhelming majority of the population doesn't have sufficient income to buy what they need. Far too many families have to decide what bills don't get paid. In a healthy economy, they'd have discretionary income, in addition to being able to pay all of their bills.
Great fallicy of American ignorance. Government backed business is the primary way to expanding the GDP of every nation, to include the US. Cherry picking certain private entity acheivements is simply bogus. Governments build the infrastructure to allow business friendly communities. State governments withhold taxation to lure corporations. Laws favor big business and investment (Robert Kiyosaki). Stimulus and bailouts also ensure that any unethical behavior is also "covered" by the government. Lastly, and especially via Reagan, Keynsian economics have been played and replayed since WW II. Add to all this, the concept of "petro-dollar" which clearly favored global American interests, and "reserve currency" status plus the nefarious activities so explained in "Confessions of an Economic Hit man" - you have all the pieces of how the government creates jobs and wealth, much at the expense of taxation and inflation. It is why the wealth has suddenly concentrated back to the 1%. It is thru the government, not via private enterprise. And it is our choice.
thom hartmann has been talking about how the middle class are the real job creators for years. add to this talk the point that taxes are not a deterrent for real business people. a true business person will go after any opportunity they deem profitable regardless of taxes, because after all taxes are paid AFTER profit, and of course they are not 100% . so it is also disingenous that raising taxes will paralize business. warren buffet has said as much on this subject. quite a few ceos as well. its time the middle class takes the title of job creators. corporations simply dont hire people without consumer demand. the name of the game is about doing more with less. corporations are not patriotic either. they have loyalty only to profit.
OMG Mr. O'Donnell, you and your show was on FIRE tonight. Great job, guys!!
Right on, best one yet! Thanks to you and your crew.
I couldn't agree with Mr. Hanauer more. That's is why I'm so proud to be a Democrate.
Lawrence, this was a great segment. Very informative, and proof that you're willing to promote anybody who presents facts.
I've been saying this for years. NOBODY ever started a business or brought on a new employee because of a tax cut. Businesses grow because of DEMAND. People start a business to fulfill a DEMAND. If you want to grow the economy, give tax breaks to the middle class and they will create DEMAND.
Lawrence--I am an avid watcher of your TERRIFIC show. So glad I caught tonight's segment. I am posting this everywhere I can! Finally, someone that makes sense and talks straight to the point. "Economists" always make everything soooo complicated. But Nick spoke the simple truth that "average" Americans can understand and fathom. And when Nick said that the absolutely LAST thing businesses want to do is hire more people, then everyone realized that Nick wasn't talking "bull...." Just the facts!
We should all buy Nick's book just as a "thank you" for this video clip! I am.
I must say that as an dedicated admirer of TED in general, I was sorely disappointed to learn of their initial suppression of the Hanauer talk.
In an email, Chris Anderson who heads t6he TED organization, rationalized not allowing release of the talk by saying,
That’s a weak excuse being given for not presenting the speech. That’s like saying that talks on climate change should not be given because one party agrees with the scientific research while the other does not.
If TED wants to take a non-political stance that’s fine, but let’s not pretend that political stances that happen to conform to reality are non-existent.
All TED has to do is preface the talk with a disclaimer that the views being expressed are not necessarily those of the organization.
Why does TED think it makes sense to limit ideas worth spreading to categories that are apolitical? Politics is very much a major component of human societal ideation and deserves expression as much as any other, in my opinion.
Thanks Mr O'Donnell for always being a lantern held up in the dark on these things.
He made entirely too much sense. Any true businessperson knows what he said is true, especially the part that the last thing a business wants to do is hire because salary and benefits are the biggest expenses they have. That's why all this talk about lower taxes and fewer regulations leading to increased hiring is nonsense. As long as they can pay the little Chinese kid $3/hour, they could be paying no taxes at all and dumping all their waste without penalty into your local water system....they still are going to hire the $3/hour, no benefits, 80 hours/week kid.
In fact, it might be more appropriate to say that the rich are little more than wealth aggregators. They are not interested in creating jobs, they are interested in gathering more wealth for themselves. Creating jobs is just another consequence of doing business, like buying equipment and supplies. In fact, they would rather have most jobs automated so that they don’t have to pay anything for labor costs beyond the initial outlay of assembly line equipment. Their goal is obvious if not clear to anyone that they only want to make more money for themselves. Unfortunately, the model of diminishing labor costs to maximize profits is unsustainable because, in the end, you will have no one that is able to buy those labor-cheap products. Unless there are enough wage-earning consumers that can earn enough to afford those products, no one gets wealthy. So in fact, the wage-earning consumers are the true wealth creators, not the rich.
What we see here is a symbiotic relationship in an economic eco-system of sorts where both wealthy investors and wage-earning consumers must fairly balance and share in the benefits of the business profits in order for both parties to continue to benefit. The issue these days is how fair the business owners have been in sharing those profits because wages have remained relatively stagnant these past 40 years, unlike the top 1% whose income has increased many time over and has thus created a new class of business oligarchs.
Great talk by Nick Hanauer. I recommend to all who want to see a sensible response the phony "job creators" claim used so often by the GOP to justify more tax breaks for the wealthy.
This is one of the most entertaining, educational, and brief presentations on the economy I've ever seen. Thank you, Nick Hanauer, and I am sharing this widely -- it's time citizens in this country quit buying the baloney sandwiches the 1% are handing down from high on the hog!
This video needs to go viral. "Middle Class People are the Real Job Creators" should be the new mantra for the Obama campaign. I hope Nick Hanauer keeps talking until his message starts to resonate. He's also been on the Dylan Ratigan show, I wonder if he's ever been on Morning Joe.
"Middle Class People are the Real Job Creator" message won't resonate simply because it doesn't make sense.
The line is: "Customers create jobs." Fewer words, and it applies to all people, rich and poor. And Cindy -- what part of that won't resonate? Where do you live? I doubt anyone in my UPC (upper middle class) neighborhood would argue with that. Nor would any of the business people in my Rotary club.
For a business, a hiring is not done as charity for the employees. Hiring is done to make money. If that business doesn't hire someone, some other competitive business will and make the money instead. Why? Because the customer will be able to buy the product or service from the company which had the person to do the work they are paying for.
If you are going to give credit to middle class consumers for job creation then it must follow that the same group should accept responsibility for driving manufacturing jobs overseas by their shopping habits.
Skup- You're right and wrong in that statement. I feel if the wages for the CEO's didn't increase 200 percent from employee wages the companies wouldn't need to go overseas to pay less than $3an hour. When these trade agreements and the gutting of manufactoring jobs started, we were, if i remember correctly were told how the competion would benefit us. We see how that turnrd out.
Thanks Lawrence! I'm so glad that I happened to catch your show last (or should I say the second airing at 1:00 a.m.?) Very informative and succinct. I couldn't agree more with Mr. Hanauer. I also liked the segment with Mario Batali. Keep up the amazing work.
Lawrence, you had me jumping up and screaming Yes, that's right. If a business cannot get you to purchase what they are selling then the business is in trouble and guess what out of business. Look at K-Mart in Kentucky. Closing yet another store and the person in Kentucky bought everything in the store for $20,000. $20,000 is not millions so what the gentleman said is true. If you cannot get the low and middle income people to buy then you are SOL and out of business. Please Lawrence get him back on the show.
I'm not sure about some of the arguments posted here. Before anyone can buy anything, a business requires an idea and an investment. As for the debt, the Bush policies were kept in place by this government. That was their decision.
MSNBC = two billionaire companies
The first repsonsibility of the businessman is not to create jobs; it is to the shareholders, first last and always. Any job creation is purely incidental. If this means laying off dozens of "receptionists" in favor of electro-mechanical answering systems then that is exactly what they have and will continue to do. Hanauer is 100% on point. The myth continues.
Rich people do not enter any financial activity that does not guarantee a return on their investment. Very few of them are risk takers. They try to get the most for their money by investing in high yelding financial papers, rather than in opening new businesses.
Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are not in business to create jobs. They are in business to create PROFITS. Employees are COSTS to the business. They are only hired when needed, in other words, when the demand for products are such that the business need employees in order to take care of the demand. No serious minded business hires people if there are no demands for their products. In fact, good business people want the least number of employees to do the most return for their investments - that's called PRODUCTIVITY. No demand, no employee.
When the government engages the private sector in public projects, such as road building, it is, in effect, creating the need for jobs. The private sector will now hire people in order to make the roads demanded by society, especially since they are guaranteed a return on their investments. That's why investing in infrastructure helps the economy: taxes pay for the developments, people are hired, get salaries, pay taxes, buy products, and, in this circular upward cycle, get the economy going. Paradoxically, The more taxes the rich pay, the more projects are developed by the public sector and implemented by the private sector, the more money circulate in the economy, the more money comes back to the pocket of the very people that started the cycle: the rich people. That's why the higher taxes during the Clinton administration ended up with a thriving economy, while the lower taxes of the Bush administration increased the debt and brought the country to the bring of disaster
Sounds like he knows what he is talking about. It has been such a farce that only the rich create jobs. Ms. Cindy sounds like she's in it for herself!!
Cindy is not rich she is one of these poor. dumb, and blind repukes that listen to fox and rush and buy into thier lies as if it was gospel.
http://unitedrepublic.org/mccain-whitehouse/?akid=114.136857.sP5NRO&rd=1&t=1
Turn the Supreme Court ruling around NOW!
Mr. Hanauer is correct. The working class and poor need the ordinary daily necessities that create the jobs at the grocery store, car dealer, laundromat, retail store, etc. They spend money rather than investing because they have daily needs which creates middle class jobs, And middle class America is the majority. Yes, some jobs are created by the super wealthy, but more are created by the daily needs of the ordinary American citizen who spends the money they earn rather than investing it or stashing it in Switzerland. As Mr. Hanauer says, it is an eco system and we all have our place. As anyone who has planted a garden knows, The problem now is that all the fertilizer is at the top (the wealthy) and none has "trickled down" to help nourish the roots (the middle class) of our country so we all can flourish. If the tax breaks for the wealtlhiest have created jobs, then why don't we have a surplus of jobs right now after ten years of tax cuts for the wealthiest? How come America had more jobs before the Bush tax cuts? It is not a matter of raising tax, but re-instating the taxes that existed when our country was in far better shape than it is now! Thank you, Mr. Hanauer, for saying it the way it really is. Now, if only the middle class will listen and use their voice to vote for President Obama in November.
So true. People need to look at history. When Roosevelt assured in the New Deal, the economy grow and the crime went down.
Anyone who votes for Romney can expect the opposite and if they've ever been a crime victim, they'll think twice about Romney. We're seeing it already in the incredibly unpatriotic moves by the Republicans. The cuts they are proposing will ruin this country as they continue to beat the drums of war, wreck our already stressed environment, and completely squash the idea of human sustainability.
I'm a proud independent and voting again for our President.
Susan from Florida,
Mr. Hanauer is incorrect. He just wanted his 15 MINUTES OF SHAME and he got it.
No poor person ever gave anyone a job. ;)
The first comment I read was from a so-called businessperson who agrees with the Republicans.
Nonsense. I'm a business owner myself. It is and always has been the small business owners and the middle class consumers who drive the economy up, not the predatory business people like Romney, or the super wealthy like O'Donnell's guest who don't go on massive shopping sprees everyday.
Nice going, Lawrence. Keep it up. People have been fooled long enough.