{"id":14581,"date":"2011-12-02T02:23:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T10:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14581"},"modified":"2011-12-02T02:23:31","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T10:23:31","slug":"when-businesspeople-take-credit-for-creating-jobs-it-is-like-squirrels-taking-credit-for-creating-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14581","title":{"rendered":"When businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it is like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Bloomburg<\/a>, venture capitalist and 1%er Nick Hanauer argues that our popular discourse misunderstands where jobs come from. A long excerpt:<\/p>\n

As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I\u2019ve started or helped get off the ground dozens of companies in industries including manufacturing, retail, medical services, the Internet and software. […] Even so, I\u2019ve never been a \u201cjob creator.\u201d I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate. […]<\/p>\n

When businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it is like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it\u2019s the other way around.<\/p>\n

It is unquestionably true that without entrepreneurs and investors, you can\u2019t have a dynamic and growing capitalist economy. But it\u2019s equally true that without consumers, you can\u2019t have entrepreneurs and investors. And the more we have happy customers with lots of disposable income, the better our businesses will do.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why our current policies are so upside down. When the American middle class defends a tax system in which the lion\u2019s share of benefits accrues to the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what has been happening in the U.S. for the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

Since 1980, the share of the nation\u2019s income for fat cats like me in the top 0.1 percent has increased a shocking 400 percent, while the share for the bottom 50 percent of Americans has declined 33 percent. At the same time, effective tax rates on the superwealthy fell to 16.6 percent in 2007, from 42 percent at the peak of U.S. productivity in the early 1960s, and about 30 percent during the expansion of the 1990s. In my case, that means that this year, I paid an 11 percent rate on an eight-figure income.<\/p>\n

One reason this policy is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the average American, but we don\u2019t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. […]<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can\u2019t buy any new clothes or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the tens of millions of middle-class families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.<\/p>\n

If the average American family still got the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would have an astounding $13,000 more in their pockets a year. It\u2019s worth pausing to consider what our economy would be like today if middle-class consumers had that additional income to spend. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now I just need to figure out how to turn this into a cartoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Bloomburg, venture capitalist and 1%er Nick Hanauer argues that our popular discourse misunderstands where jobs come from. A long excerpt: As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I\u2019ve started or helped get off the ground dozens of companies in industries … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-economics-and-the-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14582,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14581\/revisions\/14582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}