Reason.tv: Afraid to Create Jobs - Brian Calle on Why Businesses Aren't Hiring

"It's scary when the ones who are going to drive the economic recovery and put people back to work are saying, 'We're going to hold off a bit because we don't know what our government is going to do.'" So says Brian Calle.

The columnist and editorial writer for the Orange County Register got fed up with public-sector jobs programs and sluggish private-sector job growth, so he decided to ask business owners why they weren't hiring. The result is an ongoing, multimedia project called "The CEO Solutions Series," in which business owners diagnose the problem and propose solutions.

Reason.tv's Ted Balaker sat down with Calle to discuss what should be done to spur private-sector growth, the role uncertainty plays in hiring decisions, why business leaders are often afraid to complain about public policy, and the myth of the laissez-faire CEO.

Approximately 10 minutes.

Interview by Ted Balaker. Shot by Hawk Jensen, Alex Manning, and Zach Weissmueller. Edited by Jensen

Go to Reason.tv down for HD, iPod, and audio versions of this and all our videos, and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

Comments

[John]

Those rat bagging tea fuckers just want Obama to fail. That is why they are not hiring.

[DesigNate]

Please tell me that is sarcasm.

[waffles]

been here much? John is a partisan liberal hack and he takes all criticism as a deliberate racist attack on Obama.

[James Ard]

I'd say something, but he'll figure it out soon enough.

[joshua corning]

*Head explodes*

[Jeffersonian]

As PJ O'Rourke mentioned in another context, we haven't killed the goose that laid the golden egg, but we are chasing it around the yard with an axe.

[Libertarian Progressive]

Oh sure, let their little butt buddy Republicans in power and lower their taxes and let them go out and rape the environment, then they will mysteriously find the money to start hiring. Racist fucks. I hope they all go out of business.

[Jeffersonian]

Yay! What wonders will come of that!!

[Old Mexican]

Rape the environment like these "capitalists", perhaps?

http://aliciapatterson.org/APF1902/Greene/Greene.html

[Max]

Ah, yes. Real capitalism--like real Christianity--has never been tried. Until the heavenly kingdom is established, we'll just have to muddle through. Damned government!

[John]

Real communism in contrast has been tried. And we all know how that ends.

[village genius]

+1

[joshua corning]

Make money with real capitalism is a sure way to get investigated by the federal government.

Don't believe me?

Go ask Microsoft and Google about that. And expect congressional hearings into Apple's recent iPhone app store success.

Congress - "Holy shit those guys made money and hardly lobbied us or contributed to our campaigns at all!!! Get em!!!"

[J.Macy]

No, John. If you looked at who funded Obama's campaign:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre.....=N00009638

You'll be surprised.

[John]

That is enlightened corporate America. It has the best and the brightest as opposed to the knuckle dragging racist small businessmen.

[J.Macy]

No, John. If you looked at who funded Obama's campaign:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre.....=N00009638

You'll be surprised.

[Jason]

1

[J.Macy]

No, John. If you looked at who funded Obama's campaign:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre.....=N00009638

You'll be surprised.

[Jason]

2

[J.Macy]

No, John. If you looked at who funded Obama's campaign:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre.....=N00009638

You'll be surprised.

[Jason]

4!

Folks, stand in awe -- the rare quadruple post!

[J.Macy]

No, John. If you looked at who funded Obama's campaign:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre.....=N00009638

You'll be surprised.

[Jason]

3

[neilpaul]

When have we ever "known" what our government was going to do?

So collapsing aggregate demand will fuel expansion?

Balance sheet repair can be suspended when gov't promises to "be cool" for a while?

This is fantasy land.

If gov't spending wasn't through the roof and bailouts hadn't been forthcoming then CEOs wouldn't have the relatively nice problem of deciding whether or not to spend money. There would be no money to spend.

[Jeffersonian]

The thing is that, while uncomprehending idiots in legislatures have always and everywhere enacted their hare-brained schemes, these days the scope of the schemes has become so Brobdingnagian that they're actually having an effect. And we can see what that effect is.

[neilpaul]

I agree that recent federal legislation has had a large scale looka and feel, but it is still possible that hesitant CEOs are reacting to underlying economic conditions that resulted from the asset price collapse a couple of years ago, right?

I mean, the fact that current extravagant policy coincides with CEO reticence could be explained as both happening as a result of the single cause, the demand collapse that followed from plummetting house prices.

This is possible, right?

[nmg]

except that they have actually voiced their specific reasons for not hiring, and it was because they are uncertain about the future regulatory environment. End of story.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

I get it. They aren't racist because they aren't hiring. They are racist becuase they are lying about why they aren't hiring just to make Obama look bad. Thanks for clearing that up.

[Wegie]

Obama is capable of looking like a shit for brains all by himself.

[Chad]

Citation, please.

This is a quadruple dog dare.

[R C Dean]

When have we ever "known" what our government was going to do?

You're talking about "unknown unknowns".

These guys are worried about "known unknowns", announced intentions and even passed legislation that threatens vast regulatory burdens, liability exposures, and taxes.

We don't know exactly what these will be, because Congress has abrogated its responsibility to write legislation that means anything. Instead, we are faced with an unending stream of massive and shifting regulatory changes.

[neilpaul]

But, per libertarian orthodoxy, Congress abrogated that responsibility with the passage of the Sherman Anti-trust Act.

Was it Obama who signed that law?

For some reason I thought it predated Obama's election.

Maybe you're thinking of Taft Hartley, or creation of the EPA, or enactment of the income tax.

But I'm pretty sure all that happened kind of a while ago.

I admit I might have that wrong though.

[Tulpa]

That's like saying that, since a person recovers from hitting his head on a pipe walking down the stairs to the basement pretty quickly, smacking his temple with a crowbar shouldn't hurt either. Yes, those things hamper economic growth by producing uncertainty, but they don't compare to what the new "legislation" and Obamaist reinterpretation of old legislation is doing.

How many antitrust actions does the federal government pursue per year? One? Probably less, in fact.

The Taft-Hartley NLRA replaced a much more interventionist NLRA passed during the 1930s under the Roosevelt administration, which allowed closed shops and prohibited states from enacting right-to-work laws. As the Labor Board has less power under Taft Hartley, it actually reduced uncertainty. Well, at least until Obama installed a chairman who's more than willing to exceed the bounds of his authority since no one can stop him with the Dems running the fedgov.

The EPA was given authority over a clearly delimited set of polluting activities by the Clean Air Act and other laws. It wasn't until the Obamaists took over there that they started reinterpreting everything in the universe as coming under their purview.

The income tax is a known, actually, so I don't understand why you're putting it in that list.

[neilpaul]

Once an income tax has passed, how can we ever know when it will be raised on us? To what frightening level?

The EPA has always enjoyed a broad mandate that was not carefully circumscribed by the Congress. If the limits were clear then they would not be subject to ready reinterpretation.

It is clear that the economy had done well in spite of many past interventions, most of which were decried at the time as potentially creating devestating uncretainty.

Current policies are not as radical a step-up in intervention as current hysterical chicken littles would like to believe.

And the lagging ecnonomy is not primarily the fault of recent legislation, at least not clearly and demonstrably.

Our current lethargy is just as likely the result of pre-Obama policies and their catastrophic results.

But parisans of every stripe want to blame the dire situation on whatever policies they don't like.

No one wants to waste the crisis, on the left or the right.

[DesigNate]

IMHO every single last fucktard in Washington is to blame for the policies that screw around with the economy, both R & D. But the blame also flows forth to the public for checking reality at the door and going about willy-nilly buying things they couldn't afford on credit they didn't deserve.

[Sam Grove]

As far as I can tell, it is the progressive left that blames the collapse and recession on one factor.

Everyone else sees a combination of factors INCLUDING a certain amount of foreboding.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

You've got it all figured out man. You should move to California and start a business, because all the current racist business owners are pretending to actually be scared about what the government might do to further their racist anti-Obama agenda. You could probably make some money.

[J.Macy]

How come they don't allow me to delete my own comments? WTF reason?

[Tim]

Unfortunately they expect us to have mastered the web...

[kilroy]

Did you authenticate before posting your garbage? Then how would they distinguish you from anyone else that wanted to delete your garbage?

[Tulpa]

They're teaching us a valuable lesson about life, J. What is said cannot be unsaid.

[Jon]

This isn't the only problem. There simply aren't enough jobs in this country for everyone, that's all there is to it.

[creech]

Not true: there's plenty of work that needs to be done but not at wage levels that people want to offer or that unemployed with accept.
For instance, I'd pay $200 to have my house power washed but every one I contacted wants at least $400.

[High School Dropout]

there can't be 100% employment.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-chinairu.htm

Summary of Milton Friedman's Natural rate of Unemployment theory.

[neilpaul]

Instead of using the term "Obamacare" to describe the recent healthcare "reform" legislation, speakers should just wear a t-shirt that says, "Hello, I'm a douche." That would convey the same message.

Also, CEO cowardice is sad, but it's nothing new. CEOs have been pitiful bitches, unwilling to speak up for Capitalism, for decades if not centuries.

[jester]

Of course, it's real name is PPACA. A lot of genius of which none belongs to Obama went into its creation and passage. To give credit to Obama for just simply signing the fucking thing is true douchiness.

The problem with "Hello, I'm a douche" T-Shirts is that some people rightfully might think that not only are you confused about PPACA, you could also be neilpaul.

[Ken Shultz]

Anybody that needs to be convinced that taxation, runaway spending, creating new entitlements, regulation, etc. inhibit economic growth is being willfully ignorant.

What we're seeing happen in the economy right now is the direct result of the Obama crowd's favorite policies, and their solution is dialing up more of the same...

It's like watching people advocate smoking cigarettes as cure for emphysema.

[High School Dropout]

In other news, you can't smoke at the Dutchess county fair this year. $1000 fine per the county health department.

Just want to give a big fuck you shoutout to them.

[Chad]

Businesses aren't hiring because they don't have the orders that would justify more hiring.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is just looking for partisan points to score.

It's the old prisoners' dilemma in action, once again. If EVERY business went out and hired, their sales would boom, justifying the hiring. But no individual business has a reason to hire unless the rest do.

[CrackertyAssCracker]

Somebody should go break one of their windows. Then somebody would HAVE to hire the window-fixer guy, that'd get the economy rolling. Especially if government funds are used to fund the window fixing, becuase governement funds have some kind of "multiplier" thing, at least according to Paul Krugman. And he won a Nobel prize, you know.

[Chad]

No need to break windows...there are a thousand and one useful things the government could do instead.

[The Libertarian Guy]

No, Chad, there's one thing government can do:

Get the fuck out of the way.

[stuartl]

Chad, you've convinced me, economic recoveries are simply not possible.

[Chad]

Do you believe it is impossible to escape such dilemmas? Of course not. But escaping can be painfully slow, and can be sped up by smart policy.

[joshua corning]

But escaping can be painfully slow

After November the recession will end quickly.(Assuming republicans take the house and have substantial gains in the senate)

It will have little to with what Republicans actually do and everything to do with a congressional check being placed to block Obama.

[Chad]

Financial crises last around five years. We have a ways to go.

And why aren't you blaming this summer's economic pullback on FEARS that the Republicans will take a lot of seats this fall?

[joshua corning]

Financial crises last around five years.

No it does not. The dot com bubble recession lasted barely a year and was ended simply by Bush cutting taxes.

In fact there is a long history of recessions being identified and ending before stimulus packages are even passed. I recall reason doing an article on this very subject.

In fact name one American recession after the great Depression that took 5 years for recovery?

Hell I doubt you can find an American recession after the Depression that has lasted the 3 years this one has.

And if it takes so long then why does Obama and his treasury department and his staff keep telling us we are in a recovery for the past year?

[tkwelge]

The only reason that "recoveries" took place so quickly in the past was because of the artificial booms created by expansionary monetary policy. These "recoveries" simply set up the next recession. The reason that this recovery is taking so long is because the last recovery period was purely financial. Financial recoveries can spur economic growth when certain conditions are met, but the last recovery was a complete sham. The recession from the dot com bubble never really ended. We simply covered up one bubble with another. This recovery is slow going primarily because all of the chickens from the previous bubbles are finally coming home to roost. Bad investments have finally reached a point at which they MUST be liquidated. Obama and Bernanke's policies are aimed at making sure that this doesn't happen, but even they can only slow things down. I don't agree with Chad, but I don't think that we should be experiencing a massive recovery right now, anyway.

[joshua corning]

This recovery is slow going primarily because all of the chickens from the previous bubbles are finally coming home to roost.

Obama and Bernanke's policies are aimed at making sure that this doesn't happen, but even they can only slow things down.

you do realize you contradicted yourself and affirmed my statement below.

If not for the democrats we would have been out of this recession a year and a half ago.

[tkwelge]

"you do realize you contradicted yourself and affirmed my statement below."

I was not arguing that Obama and the Democrats are "helping" economy. My point was that it wasn't ENTIRELY their fault that the recession is as bad as it is. Actually, it's kind of both parties fault going back a century. You are kind of missing the greater economics by trying to argue the minutia of the most current events.

[Chad]

There is a point to slowing it down, tkwelge.

If you don't slow it down, it feeds on itself and swamps not only the insolvent, but the solvent. In practice, people and businesses take time to adjust, and if the economy is changing much more rapidly than humans can effectively react to it, many get swept under.

[tkwelge]

"If you don't slow it down, it feeds on itself and swamps not only the insolvent, but the solvent"

Actually, the faster a recession is allowed to work itself out, the better. However, I don't believe that focusing on getting out of this recession FAST is the best course of action. Any attempt to speed up "recovery" simply continues the cycle of malinvestment and government expansion (primarily government debt).

You pretend that an economy can't recover without intervention. Explain the three economic recoveries that occurred between 1870 and 1900 with no government stimulus (there were actually surpluses). There was also no federal reserve. THere was a harmful national banking network, which was sort of a decentralized, uncoordinated federal reserve system, but no federal reserve.

[joshua corning]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....ted_States

The longest recession after the depression was 1 year 4 months July 1981 ?
Nov 1982

The current one we are in now started in Dec 1007...2 years 7 months.

If not for the democrats we would have been out of this recession a year and a half ago.

[Chad]

Josh, you don't even know what a financial crisis is. We haven't had one since the Depression.

[tkwelge]

I consider the savings and loan crisis a financial crisis. I consider the Dot Com boom and bust a financial crisis. The "boom" of the nineties was simply the result of historically low interest rates (at the time, they were the lowest long term interest rates since the sixties) combined with a strong dollar (thanks to the weakness of foreign currencies, not the strength of any American monetary policy). Yes, the rise of the internet helped too, but the conditions in the nineties were largely created by financial circumstances. Oh yeah, at the time, the demand from the developing world was not yet strong enough to kick up commodity prices too.

Arguing about how long a recovery should take is kind of like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

[The Libertarian Guy]

"Josh, you don't even know what a financial crisis is. We haven't had one since the Depression.'

Hold on, now, Chad... haven't you and your ilk been telling us we were on the brink of disaster just mere months ago, and the ONLY way it was averted was when Obama waved His Staff and parted the red sea of ink?

[High School Dropout]

You have too much faith in Republicans my friend. Hopefully it's well founded. John Boner as the new Speaker of the House does not instill confidence in me.

[Sam I Am]

Here's a "smart policy": Stay the fuck out of the way and let the free market do its thing.

[tkwelge]

Businesses are turning a profit. Anytime somebody is turning a profit, that suggests that they could lower prices and increase production. The weakness in hiring is mostly due to the uncertainty of the future. I agree with you, I don't know how much of this is really "regime uncertainty." However, I believe that simply increasing aggregate demand to "get people buying again" simply would create another artificial bubble. I believe that wages still need to fall more to rationalize more hiring. Overall consumer demand hasn't dropped much. The unemployment is primarily due to the removal of unnecessary jobs created by the last artificial bubble.

[normcash]

What would we do if we could not blame our miserable fucking lives on the government? I know I'm a horrible businessman who has run my company into the ground, but the reason I'm not hiring is that I cannot predict with 100% certainly what my taxes in 3 years will be.

[Geotpf]

So I take it you've never hired anybody ever? Because there has never been a case where one can predict with 100% certainly what one's taxes in 3 years will be.

[P Brooks]

I, for one, would be perfectly willing to go to a car dealer and sign a contract to take possession of a new car without knowing the model, actual purchase price, or costs of operation. Wouldn't everybody?

[P Brooks]

If I saw somebody walking down the street wearing a "Hello, I'm a douche" t-shirt, I would assume s/he was a member of a teachers' union.

[jester]

...or the Prince of Wales thinking of just another way of getting inside of Camilla's hot, juicy vagina.

[Chad]

Btw, can anyone provide me with a peer-reviewed, quantifiable measurement of "regulatory uncertainty", and use it to demonstrate that there is more of it now than during economic booms, or that more broadly, it correlates with the economic cycle?

I bet you guys can't actually back up your theory with data.

[James Ard]

Well, let's start with the moratorium on drilling, then look at the new EPA refinery rules, the threatened utility tax and Obama's general hatred of profit and I think we have a pretty good start.

[Chad]

What part of "quantifiable" exceeds your ability to comprehend?

Please try again.

Hint: "quantification" involves numbers.

[James Ard]

Four regulatory uncertainties is plenty of quantification.

[Chad]

lol...please try again.

I want QUANTITATIVE evidence that there either more or larger regulatory uncertainties now than in, say, 1985, 1998, or 2006.

Come on, it's YOUR claim. Back it up with data, or withdraw it.

[tkwelge]

There is no such thing as "peer reviewed, quantifiable measurement" in economics. Well, at least not one that can be proven to have an isolated cause.

[Chad]

Apparently, you believe that economics journals and research do not exist.

That's all I am asking for: one stinking paper that backs up your claim.

[tkwelge]

I'm not going to argue that there is "more" regulatory uncertainty now than at other times. However, during deep recessions, any regulatory uncertainty is bad. The financial overhaul was supposed to remove uncertainty once it was passed, but the bill simply allocated authority without any clear definition of action.

[Chad]

You are not going to argue it because you can't.

Now would you kindly admit that I called you on it?

[tkwelge]

Oh wow, Chad. YOu got me on a point that I wasn't even arguing! Congratulations. Economics is not an empirical natural science. Yes, lots of economists love to pretend that it is, but social science is NOT SCIENCE. There are no controlled experiments, no isolated variables, and few perfectly analogous historical events. Trying to pretend that economics is science is retarded. Economists are unable to predict anything. If you get ten economists in a room, they will all give you a different theory about the recession. Economics is mostly a popularity contest. I could go on and on denigrating the thing that I've pretty much dedicated my life to, but I don't see the point. I'm not saying that economics is meant to be ignored, but it's limitations must be recognized. The biggest fools see the economy as one big mechanical engine that they can tinker with. Good luck with that.

[Chad]

It really amazes me that you refuse to see the connections between businesses. At the height of the collapse, businesses were falling like dominoes, dragging their partners, suppliers, and customers down with each other. As one business engaged in mass layoffs, it undercut the customer base of the rest, causing them to engage in layoffs too. You also apparently don't seem to understand that the recovery will work in reverse.

The government managed to stop the negative feedback, but didn't do enough to start the positive one. We are stuck on hold as a result.

[Sam I Am]

Uhh, lets see Chad: Cap & Trade (hopefully dead) didn't exist in '85, '98 or '06, neither did the off shore drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, neither did ObamaCare or the dip shits in the EPA threatening to regulate CO2 emissions and screw industry. Forest Gump would recognize these as regulatory uncertainties.

[Shannon Love]

Chad,

Btw, can you provide a peer-reviewed, quantifiable measurement of "insert economic factor" and use it to demonstrate that there is more of it now than during economic booms, or that more broadly, it correlates with the economic cycle?

No, you cannot.

Economics is not a predictive science and it is not a predictive science because you cannot measure the "economy" at all. You can't even concretely and numerically define what "the economy" is in the first place.

All macro-economic metrics are completely notional and always shifting. Sometime, look at the federal definition of "employment" it literally fills a small binder being over 50 pages long. Then remember that the definition is constantly being changed an updated such that any "employment" metric from twenty years ago is not the same metric used today. All other economic metrics are just as squishy and useless.

Economics is not engineering. Economist can only identify general concepts such as supply the linkage between supply and demand but they cannot measure supply or demand at any given time and they cannot use those measurements to make predictive models of future supply and demand.

However, just because we cannot measure a phenomena reliably does not mean it does not exist. Radiation always existed even though no human sense could detect it. Pre scientific People knew that temperature rose and fell long before the invention of the thermometer. People could say, "it very cold outside," or "his fever has gone up to a dangerous level" without having the means to consistently measure the deflection of a column of mercury in a tube of glass.

Likewise, regulatory uncertainty definitely exists which you would know had you yourself ever ran a business. It is one of the many, many factors that business people deal with on a daily basis. It is also immediately obvious that it has increased significantly in the last two years as the Democrats went on their legislative spree. "Hope and Change" means "Hope and Uncertainty" in the business world. This is especially true when those enacting the change are ideologically hostile to the economically creative. Since risk avoidance is the core of what job creators do, anything that reduces their ability to access risk makes them less willing to act.

It would be nice if we could actually measure economic factors and create testable and predictive models of economic behavior but we cannot. Instead, we just have to wing it. Right now, the people that create jobs are saying that regulatory uncertainty is a significant factor in their decisions not assume the risk of creating new jobs.

That's the best information we are going to get.

[Chad]

Btw, can you provide a peer-reviewed, quantifiable measurement of "insert economic factor" and use it to demonstrate that there is more of it now than during economic booms, or that more broadly, it correlates with the economic cycle

Actually, Shannon, you are mostly right. There is actually little evidence that ANY policy within the bounds of political normalcy, or set thereof, has any major impact on the economy. There is no statistically significant relationship between which party holds which office and either GDP or market returns (though Democrats come close to winning...around 80% confidence level). Yet day in and day out, you guys scream that "But if you do THAT, the economy will collapse into absolute nothingness and we will all die miserable deaths". And I wish I was only barely exaggerating.

If we make Warren Buffet pay a higher tax rate than his secretary, the economy will collapse. If we make polluters pay fair value to pollute, the economy will collapse. If we use our vast wealth to ensure that everyone has their basic needs met, the economy will collapse. You say this again and again, despite the fact that nation after nation does all of these things to a greater degree than we do, and things go just fine.

[Shannon Love]

There is actually little evidence that ANY policy within the bounds of political normalcy, or set thereof, has any major impact on the economy.

Then why do them? If the government economic policies have little effect on the economy then why should we let the government fiddle with the economy?

More generally, if you don't understand a complex, highly interrelated system, then is a good idea to randomly change it all the time? Isn't that like turning a meth addled monkey loose with a wrench inside a reactor.

Had you been paying attention, you would understand that libertarianism is premised on exactly our inability to measure and process social and economic phenomena. 95% of the threads on Reason are about somebody in the political system claiming they have both the knowledge and mechanism needed to guide some social or economic process with laser like precision and the Reasonoids trying to explain to them why they don't have that knowledge.

You say this again and again, despite the fact that nation after nation does all of these things to a greater degree than we do, and things go just fine.

By which you mean Western Europe. (I doubt you think of Japan as much of model.) Things in Europe are not just fine. Answer me this: What major technology/industry has come out of Europe in the last 50 years? What big artitistic innovations have they've given the world? Where's the European equivalent of Hip-hop? How many new big corporations do they have and (more importantly) how many formally big corporations have faded away? What is their percentage of mid-sized businesses? How much scientific research, especially medical, gets done in Europe?

Where are the European Apple, Google, Walmarts. Where are the European rappers? Hell, in the 70s, European governments actively suppressed their own nascent computer industry because they thought it would cost jobs. If it was up to Europe, we wouldn't have personal computers at all because you can't start a small company in your garage and grow it to a giant in Europe.

Europe is a retirement community. Its entire political culture is based around security and stasis.

If you doubt this, then look at the only metric we have, people voting with their feet. People, especially creative people, leave Western Europe to come to America. Very, very few go the other way.

[Chad]

First, I would argue that policy does have impacts on the economy, but the important ones are long term. Underinvestments in infrastructure, health, education and R&D will erode future growth, but at a glacial pace that will never be easy to correlate to any particular policy. The problem is that politics changes on a yearly pace while their effects can linger for decades. The current state of our infrastructure, for example, is a result of the combined policies of the last dozen presidents, with some having a larger effect than others. How do you relate it to a particular policy and place blame or credit? You can't. Or if Obama were to pass an education plan that really did boost performance, would he get any boost to today's economy from it? Nope. But some president forty years down the road would.

I don't base my politics on economic growth, which I believe is a fundamentally flawed ideology in the first place. Far too much of our current economy is fat, or "broken windows", that we would be much better off without. If some bill (say, a climate bill) caused some parts of our economy to die, they deserve the death they got. They weren't actually productive in the first place. The mere fact that you typically use GDP as your benchmark taints your thinking. For example, most economic growth (that wasn't pure speculation) since the early 80s was a result of women entering the workforce. Sure, women getting formal jobs boosts GDP, but since you aren't counting what is lost (kids being taken care of by mom, homecooked meals, more free time, higher-quality housework), your numbers are inflated.

I base my policy thoughts on entirely different metrics, frankly, and don't worry so much about the formal economy. People will work as long as they aren't so rich they don't need to and as long as the economy changes at a pace that is slow enough for humans to adapt.

[Chad]

And btw, there are plenty of pending regulations that would affect the business I work for...TSCA regulations, patent reform, climate change bills, etc.

All of them added together affect us far less than a single decision of any of our major customers.

And you STILL won't offer me evidence that there is more regulatory uncertainty now than in the past. Why didn't the economy collapse in 2003, when uncertainty about the war should have utterly slaughtered the economy, according to your theory?

[Shannon Love]

And you STILL won't offer me evidence that there is more regulatory uncertainty now than in the past.

There is only one possible metric and that is the "chatter" of economic creatives talking about the uncertainty. Remember we are talking about human beings making decisions so when they start saying that regulatory uncertainty is influencing their decisions more than in the past then that is the only conceivable evidence we are ever going to get.

I mean, you do actually believe that regulatory uncertainty has some effect on making economic creatives willing to take risk don't you? If so, then it would follow that when the government makes more sweeping changes then the effect will be large than times when the government makes fewer changes. It's just common sense. It's also common sense that piling on regulatory uncertainty when times are already bad will just aggravate the bad times.

Despite your straw man exaggerations, no one is claiming that regulation uncertainty is the sole cause of the lack of recovery. What they are saying is that it is a significant factor and one that is utterly ignored by the Democrats who now control all three branches of government. Business people creating new jobs, even new industries is the only way to end the recession. We should be focusing on making that job creation easier, not harder, even if we can't measure exactly how hard we are making it.

You keep asking for evidence that regulatory uncertainty slows job creation but since you support the imposition of regulations, shouldn't the burden of proof be on you to show that they don't? "First, do no harm," isn't just for doctors. Anyone seeking to impose their will on other human beings by the force of the state has the burden of demonstrating that the imposition does not do more harm than good.

Why didn't the economy collapse in 2003, when uncertainty about the war should have utterly slaughtered the economy, according to your theory?

Very telling that you didn't say 2001 when the economy did in fact take a massive nose dive owing almost entirely to the uncertainty caused by the terrorist attacks. 2003 caused no similar issues because the start of the war was long telegraphed and any uncertainty discounted.

Had the massive changes of the last 18 months been set in concrete years in advance, then they would have had little effect.

[Chad]

There is only one possible metric and that is the "chatter" of economic creatives talking about the uncertainty

By "economic creatives" you mean "right-wingers".

[Chad]

There is only one possible metric and that is the "chatter" of economic creatives talking about the uncertainty

By "economic creatives" you mean "right-wingers".

[Chad]

And please explain how ANY major bill is not "long telegraphed"...

All the things I noted that would affect my business have been under discussion for years, and if they did ever pass, we would be given even more years to adapt.

[John]

It sort of depends on how one defines uncertainty. In the garage door industry having a new set of EPA lead paint rules that the industry publications can't explain fits my definition. What do you think?

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[tkwelge]

"Why didn't the economy collapse in 2003, when uncertainty about the war should have utterly slaughtered the economy, according to your theory?"

There was A LOT of talk about how the war was damaging for the economy. Where the hell have you been?

[tkwelge]

There is no such thing as a definable level of regime uncertainty. Not all regime uncertainty will have exactly the same effect. ALso, there are times when regime uncertainty is less of a problem than others.

[jester]

I, for one, cannot. I don't read peer-reviewed economic journals and such as you do so over coffee each morning, if you weren't such an asshole, you'd provide me with a hint to the article that proves that you're a disingenuous prick and save me a whole lotta time and subscription fees to jstor.

[joshua corning]

So here is the Chad's argument in full detail:

'Rich people are not hiring because they have no money. The problem is not uncertainty so ending uncertainty is not the solution.

The solution is to tax the rich people who have no money so the government can hire more people with money they took from people who normally would hire people but have no money.'

Here is the shorter version:

'Bush did it'

[Chad]

Wrong, Josh. Corporations are flush with cash. They have no reason to spend it, because they have so few customers walking in the doors.

And of course, they have no customers because they and all their fellow corporations laid so many people off, and scared the piss out of the rest of us.

[The Libertarian Guy]

If I owned a business, I'd sure as hell want to know how roughly I'm going to get fucked in the ass with taxes and regulations. And the current crop of politicians want to dip that strap-on in epoxy and broken glass before they serve it up.

[High School Dropout]

"According to the Office of the Federal Register, in 1998, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the official listing of all regulations in effect, contained a total of 134,723 pages in 201 volumes that claimed 19 feet of shelf space. In 1970, the CFR totaled only 54,834 pages."

"The General Accountability Office (GAO) reports that in the four fiscal years from 1996 to 1999, a total of 15,286 new federal regulations went into effect. Of these, 222 were classified as "major" rules, each one having an annual effect on the economy of at least $100 million."

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/.....ions_2.htm

There isn't more current information that I could find while half drunk in 5 minutes to answer your question, but I believe this shows that every year more regulations are passed than the previous years.

If there is x uncertainty for every major piece of regulation passed, I'm sure we could do enough digging to find out more has been regulated over the past 2 years than the two years previous and the two years before that etc...meaning there is more regulatory uncertainty now than in the past.

[High School Dropout]

I just want to note that this rate of regulatory increase would be occuring under different management more than likely, it just might be more to the liking of businessmen cited in the video above. Which regulation would be better...? We'll find out when the big R takes over in a few months.

[joshua corning]

What part of "quantifiable" exceeds your ability to comprehend?

9.5% unemployment. A number that does not include the workers who stopped looking.

[joshua corning]

Currently i do not think future laws are what is causing the lion's share of the uncertainty among employers.

health care reform although enacted has for the most part not taken effect. No one knows in any industry how it will play out and how government agencies will interpret it, and most importantly how much it will cost.

[MJ]

Business not knowing how to go while the government flails around trying to solve a crisis it is singularly ill suited to address.

It's what made the Great Depression great.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Okay, so where the hell is Tony? He surely could have doubled the length of this thread.

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What part of "quantifiable" exceeds your ability to comprehend?

9.5% unemployment. A number that does not include the workers who stopped looking.

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