The problem with the idea of focusing on jobs, jobs, jobs, is that it's been done before, and has never worked. Unless a "job" results in the production of a good for service for which there exists actual demand, it is simply a convoluted way of redistributing existing wealth. If done through the tax system, "job creation" takes money from producers directly and bestows it on non-producers. If done by deficit spending, "job creation" transfers value from savers to non-savers via the "hidden tax" of inflation.
The latest "economic stimulus" bill, proposed by the Democrats, is reportedly a plan to spend nearly $1 trillion principally on "job creation." ("House Democrats propose $825 billion stimulus bill," Associated Press, 01/15/09) Assuming that the money doesn't get diverted into parties for executives of failed companies or used to purchase "toxic assets" resulting from decisions that would have gotten lesser mortals fired or jailed, the proposal would result in transferring $825 billion from the "haves" and giving it to the "have-nots," thereby reversing their roles, and justifying another program of redistribution to level things out yet again (with adequate compensation for the politicians and bureaucrats running the programs, as well as their friends, of course).
There is a much better way to turn "have-nots" into "haves," however — and without the necessity of wasting time, energy, and resources on massive redistribution programs or the injustice of stealing from some to give to others. It's called "Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen," from the book with the same title. Instead of trying to figure out ways to redistribute wealth, the legislature (both Democrats and Republicans) should be working to implement a sound program that opens up equal opportunity for everyone to participate in the economic process, as workers and owners, to say nothing of wage-earners and dividend recipients, and (most important of all), voters who elect public officials and members of the boards of directors for the companies in which they work and share ownership.
As we noted yesterday, a Capital Homestead Act has the best chance of achieving these goals that are completely unrealistic from within the current Keynesian economic paradigm. Still, even a Keynesian should be able to recognize the potential of a national economic program based on the binary growth model of Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler, designed to lift barriers in the present financial and economic system and universalize access to the means of acquiring and possessing capital assets. A Capital Homestead Act would allow every man, woman and child to accumulate in a tax-sheltered Capital Homestead Account, a target level of assets sufficient to generate an adequate and secure income for that person without requiring the use of existing pools of savings or reductions in current levels of consumption.
THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.
