How a job is created

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This morning I called in to C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to answer the question “Is it fair that the Obama administration has been called anti-business”. To give you some context, I consider myself a democrat and I voted for Obama (and attended the rallies, etc)

I’ve been ruminating over the issue for most of the day. Here are a few more thoughts.

At the front of every American’s mind right now is the awful job market. America has lost more than 8 million jobs since 2007. Both parties have hitched their idiological wagons to this talking point and are trying to appear to be more capable of solving the issue than the other guy.

The issue is simple: How do we create more jobs.

The answer is simple: You help grow existing businesses and you help create new businesses. That is how a job is created.

Let me say that again in case your ideological lense distorted that last sentence [or in case that blue hurts your eyes too].

You create jobs by helping grow existing businesses and helping create new businesses.

I’m a business owner in Seattle. I own a funded Technology startup. My goal is to grow my business into something the size of Google that employs 25,000 people. I’M THE GUY TRYING TO CREATE JOBS.

I’m trying to create jobs so hard that I work without a salary. Not only that but I invest my life savings into the cause of creating jobs. I also work harder at my job of creating jobs than most people work at their normal job. I regularly pull 80+ hour weeks. [I’m sure you medical interns are laughing at me, but you’re the exception and are clearly insane.]

Three friends of mine in Silicon Valley have taken some of their life savings and given it to me in the hope that they might help me create 25,000 jobs the way Google did.

But what is very very strange is that with all this Democrat and Republican talk of creating jobs, not a single democrat or republican has actually done anything to help my friends and I create jobs.

Nothing.

They haven’t helped startups get access to credit.

They haven’t helped startups spend less on taxes so they can spend more on growth.

They haven’t helped the people who fund startups. In fact there’s talk of putting them out of business because they’re “BANKERS“!

So really the message is that the American government does not care about creating jobs. The Obama administration doesn’t care. The Democratic party doesn’t care and the Republicans don’t care either.

The only job security every senator and congressman cares about is their own. So call or write your senator or congressman today and let them know that if they don’t do something that helps create new businesses and grow existing ones, you’re going to fire them.

While the jockeying and posturing continues in Washington D.C., my friends and I here in Seattle and people like us all over America will continue to work our tails off to help create jobs for you. We’ll continue to burn our savings. We’ll keep working without pay. Our friends will continue to risk their savings to try and help us.

Comments

11 responses to “How a job is created”

February 11, 2010

cak

Wow, way to take something horrible, like the huge job losses, and twist it around to make you even more money, and pay less taxes. Maybe you will spend it all on expanding your business, maybe you are just ridiculously greedy.

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February 12, 2010

Marco Maggi

But the government cannot help you directly, no? Because you are in the USA, not in China. So the whole discussion revolves around: how to make more appealing for “bankers” to invest in job-creating enterprises, rather than to invest in financial stuff, or not to invest at all (in risky stuff).

IMHO governments cannot do much; they can only change the rules of the game (which some are thinking, probably too slowly) and pressure other government on stopping “unfair” practices (like China with the dollar/yuan ratio, and Obama is doing it, you have to admit it).

Rather than yelling at Obama, you should ask yourself why the USA economic system is not self-correcting everything; why is the system not creating more jobs by itself?

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February 12, 2010

Arthur

The comments on this page are generally imbecilic. Doing a startup is like getting a Ph.D. There’s easier ways, more guaranteed ways to get money. If you have the level of motivation and skill to pull off a successful startup, you could probably be making six figures on Wall St. or be working for the likes of McKinsey.

And instead, you live on a college student’s budget so you can make something that will hopefully be worth something to people.

Is there some self-interest there as well? Yes, but what did you expect? That he act like a nun?

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February 12, 2010

SP

The comments posted here so far are simply depressing, as they seem to miss the entire point of the message. Jobs are created by entrepreneurs taking risks and trying to get rich by adding value to the marketplace. Every single business in this country and around the world exists because of an entrepreneur trying to get rich. That’s a good thing.

Think of the millions and millions of jobs created throughout the ages simply by entrepreneurs trying to get rich. We should be cheering for the entrepreneurs of this country and making it as easy as possible for them to hire more employees. The best way to do this is by lowering taxes and killing the regulations that only help large entrenched corporations keep smaller competitors out of the game.

The author is right about one more thing: Republicans and Democrats don’t care about creating jobs, otherwise they’d lower taxes and make hiring employees and starting businesses easier. Read mises.org. Vote Libertarian.

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February 12, 2010

Boboli

Obama and COngress can get serious about the ridiculous exchange rates that Asian countries are using to destroy America’s industry

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February 12, 2010

Marco Maggi

@SP If you have read mises.org you know that they say something along the lines of “once you start regulating, you have to regulate everything to cope with the consequences of the first regulations”. Now, IMHO the inverse is also true: once you start deregulating, you have to deregulate everything. Am I wrong in stating that, without a well funded government doing stuff, the USA would have been annihilated by the Soviet Union?

If you say “vote libertarian”, you should also say “remove laws about legal persons” (that is, change the rules) and good luck doing it! Pure libertarianism is a utopia. And you also have to take care not to create neo-feudalism, which is not libertarian at all, but it will arise in no-rules societies because of social networking (mafia) etc.

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February 12, 2010

Feeling The Lame

And here I thought this was going to be an article about “how a job is created”. Why don’t you people title things truthfully?

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February 12, 2010

Elizabeth

Most Republicans want to cut taxes to help business. I don’t know how many Republicans one encounters in Seattle, but we’re all about reducing both the tax & regulatory burdens businesses face (in a reasonable way, not abolishing the FDA or anything). Tort-reform, for example, is something Republicans want, and it helps businesses by reducing frivolous lawsuits.

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February 12, 2010

Anon

The blogger is exactly right on one point. The incumbents in congress care only about one thing, their reelection. Nothing else but that one point drives them. And the only real message that gets through their thick skulls is tossing them out of office.

The only solution to the current problem is to throw out every incumbent congressman (all 435 of them) and every single incumbent senator (all 1/3 that are up for reelection this year) in the fall election. That would send a huge message, one that would be heard loud and clear by the remaining senators that were not up for reelection and to all 435 brand new house members.

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February 13, 2010

clay barham

Innovation and new start-ups begin without any job-creation specialist’s input. It begins with a gnawing idea in some individual’s gut followed by the courage to pursue it as one of those people who, like the pebble dropper, makes waves and leaves wakes disturbing the accepted and established way things are done, in spite of the many critics. Without that, the specialist contributes what? See Save Pebble Droppers & Prosperity on Amazon and claysamerica.com.

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February 20, 2010

GP

You want less taxes and you consider yourself a democrat?…

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