Mark Vent
Mark SumnerThere is no such thing as a “job creator.” There are employers, who hire employees, *because they need them*. And then employers pay the employees less than the value they generate. That’s the system. How did we get to the point at which people behave as if the wealthy are giving a gift to working people? I realize it’s not a new attitude, but it remains proudly f’d up.
Christophe Bobda@Devilstower Hi Mark! Most of those businesses started with government money like SBIR and other grants, tax credits, loans, intellectual properties and other incentives. Many of those businesses would not even exist without government contracts. And when they mismanaged and go bankrupt, the government is there to help. Yet, they refuse to play by the rules and pay their fair share.
toxtethogrady@Devilstower This a conceit created by Ayn Rand and all her various followers. Their opinion was prevalent in 1980 through 2010, but the 2008 crash proved they were not geniuses and since Covid, all the leverage has flowed to those getting hired as opposed to those doing the hiring. CEOs hate this change in the shape of the world (and by extension the Fed is representing their viewpoints) but they may have no choice but to accept reality...
Stargeezer Smith@Devilstower
It's a concoction of the GOP to justify their legislation in favor of the wealthy, who in turn finance their campaigns.
President Biden is the true job creator. He invested in the working class, literally providing jobs with infrastructure spending. That leads to buying power of the masses, which drives up demand, which drives up manufacturing, which provides even more jobs.
They key has always been investing in the working class, never with giving more to the wealthy.
FreediverXDon’t take this as a pro-GOP comment, but the Democratic Party is no friend to the working class, certainly not since the Clinton administration, at least. Both parties are beholden to the same corporate interests. America is a plutocracy.
Batat@Devilstower that's why my union demands calling them "work buyers". Not employers, not work creators. Work is created strictly by human needs.
synkdorbit@batat @Devilstower "Work buyer" - love this characterization!
Sven "DrMcCoy" Hesse@batat @Devilstower in German, the official actual words are Arbeitgeber, work giver, for employer and Arbeitnehmer, work taker, for employee 😶
Like, the employer graciously gives work that the greedy employee takes
Insert Žižek "eating from the trash can of ideology" gif here
Keikioaina@Devilstower What an excellent point. Fuck that Job Creator frame.
Aphrodite (recharging)labourers are wealth creators of capital is job creators
levampyre@Devilstower What you say!
@Devilstower
I work in biotech and I disagree
just as there are exceptional individuals in athletics (Simone Bile, the GOAT) there are exceptional B leaders who are job creators
true, those jobs require customers, but over all I think your message is not 100% accurate
I work in biotech and I disagree
just as there are exceptional individuals in athletics (Simone Bile, the GOAT) there are exceptional B leaders who are job creators
true, those jobs require customers, but over all I think your message is not 100% accurate
artisanrox"Job Creator" is a bad faith attempt to reframe an utterly self-centered (doesn't mean "bad" by default, just self-centered) position like CEO as ultimately humanitarian and charitable.
Being a business owner isn't being a charity owner. The second you suggest profits aren't important, or get told that profits should extend to ALL people making them, you get told VERY loudly that "businesses aren't a charity".
Employment isn't by default, EVER, a charitable activity.
I find your arguments unpersuasive, and I don't think further conversation will be productive
@Hello57 @artisanrox @Devilstower I don't think there was any argument to be made. It's just an illustration of a fact. The purpose of a for-profit business is profit. Labor is just a tool for doing that. If labor helps increase the profit margin the company will hire. If it doesn't it will not. If labor can be replaced by computers and machines it will happen and the company will continue to turn a profit which is its goal without labor which is not.
@pmcoder @artisanrox @Devilstower
I find your arguments unpersuasive, and I don't think further conversation will be productive
@Hello57 @pmcoder @Devilstower
If you copy and paste a reply enough you'll pursuade us of anything you want LOL 
localzuk@Hello57 @pmcoder @artisanrox @Devilstower why comment at all if you're just going to "nah" in every response?
@localzuk @pmcoder @artisanrox @Devilstower
well, if every response is more or less the same . . .
antipode77Sometimes nuance hinders one in presenting a fact on the stage of public opinion.
Forgive them. 😇
The fact, that employers need employees to create or build products does NOT make them job creators. It is a misleading use of language.
In the same vein those who use machines would be machine creators.
no, this is *just *not *true
at least in some special cases
just as some athletes (Simone Biles are superior, some CEOs are superior and the are the engine
if you disagree with this point, please don't bother to reply as the convo will be unproductive
I do not disagree with you.
Some humans are stellar, some abominable, most average.
This is the spread of the standard deviation.
By default people assume ALL billionaires belong in the stellar category.
The error people make with billionaires is in not applying the standard deviation to them >as a group<.
There is more to a great entrepeneur then just accumulating as much money as possible.
James M.@Hello57 @antipode77 @Devilstower with that attitude, you're never going to have your viewpoints tested, if you merely dismiss all statements you don't already agree with. That means your viewpoints will not be well-grounded.
Grassroots Joe@Hello57 @Devilstower
Some people are very good at creating the need for work to be done.
Similarly, there are those who suck at creating the need for work but quite good at structuring/managing the work to be done. Are these the "job creators"?
Without them the work creators would be dead in the business water.
In the end, it's just a bad label. People should be compensated for doing a job well.
They should not be over compensated for the work of others.
Some people are very good at creating the need for work to be done.
Similarly, there are those who suck at creating the need for work but quite good at structuring/managing the work to be done. Are these the "job creators"?
Without them the work creators would be dead in the business water.
In the end, it's just a bad label. People should be compensated for doing a job well.
They should not be over compensated for the work of others.
this maybe true, but it isn't what I was getting at
just as in sports, some people (W Gretzky) create opportuinity, so in business, some people are better at creating new products
@Hello57 @Devilstower
Which is pretty much what I said. That doesn't make them job creators. It makes them potential job creators. They should be very well compensated, but they should not earn several hundred times the salaries of the people who clean their work spaces & bathrooms, & many other people doing jobs that without which they would be unable to do their work.
Which is pretty much what I said. That doesn't make them job creators. It makes them potential job creators. They should be very well compensated, but they should not earn several hundred times the salaries of the people who clean their work spaces & bathrooms, & many other people doing jobs that without which they would be unable to do their work.
Tröglödÿt@Hello57
biotech rebranded as life science because to capitalise and technologise biology was perceived as repugnant by both the general public and investors
it's a business sector rife with fraud and exploitation, as is obvious from how stocks are used to fleece small investors and the work of people like elisabeth bik and smut clyde
send us your research so we can look at the data and decide whether it belongs on pubpeer
utter nonsense
@Hello57
right, so send us your thesis and published research so we can take a long deep look at it
Buster McNuttI my industry, the original "job creators" were the applied physicists, scientists, and engineers (and associated staff like managers, etc) who created instrumentation operated by other scientists and technicians all over the world.
"Job creators" as a faceless blanket term we're supposed to pledge allegiance to and throw money at is useless though.
tobie@Devilstower I'm convinced that "job creator" was a term created by Republicans to make their base feel good. They told small biz operators like"Joe, the Plubmer" and "Tito, the Builder," you're a job creator, a latter-day Thomas Edison, and everyone else feeds off your entrepreneurial spirit. Meanwhile, small businesses / LLCs are the biggest tax cheats in the US.
@tobie @Devilstower oh, it was definitely created by the GOP. I remember when they started pushing it all at once in a coordinated PR move; I think it was during the GWB regime. The Daily Show did one of their video montages of many GOP politicians and pundits saying exactly the same thing over the course of a day or two. That time the phrase was "job creator". It was probably a circulated memo that morning telling everyone to push that phrase-du-jour in all TV appearances.
Lot⁴⁹
Susan @Devilstower as someone who owned 3 small businesses in my youth, I can say that - from the evidence; it is business CUSTOMERS who create jobs. Not the business owner.
@SusanKraemer @Devilstower exactly. The real "job creators" are the customers providing demand for goods and services.
Peter William Wright@Devilstower what about people who spend their time breaking windows; they create jobs for glaziers.
Graydon@Devilstower It's the slaver attitude that they own the job. Since the job is your only means of survival, they're saving your life when they don't have to, so you should be appropriately grateful.
People like that should be kept away from money as a matter of public safety.
Nicklas Johnson 🏳️🌈@Devilstower I've wondered this myself, and quite often it sounds a little bit like extortion from corporations, too... ie, "you'd better give us these tax breaks, or we'll stop 'creating' jobs!" or "nice jobs we have here... it'd be a shame if something 'happened' to them!"
Sometimes there's quite a mob boss feel to things.
Rick@Devilstower For decades, every consumer confidence report mentioned that the US is a "consumer driven economy." It is. There has to be a market to sell anything. We have a trickle up economy.
Mike | Abundance Protocol@Devilstower I agree that the system doesn't fairly compensate workers for their labor. The question though is, if an employer pays an employee LESS than what their labor produced, why does the employee agree to such terms and not just produce the labor independently and get the full pay? Not so simple..
Angry Centrist@abundance @Devilstower It's pretty simple. The business and rentier classes have demonized and destroyed the idea of unions, so each employee is on their own rather than having an organization at their backs with similar power to that of the "boss." Nearly all bosses seek to pay the minimum they can, so all the options available to many workers are bad and they talk themselves into taking the least-bad job they can get.
@dkbgeek @Devilstower Yes, as I said, how much money you make in a company often depends on your proximity to management, which is not very fair. But to 'take a job' still implies that someone needs to 'create' the job and 'give' it.
@abundance @Devilstower No capitalist ever woke up one morning and said "I shall create some jobs, because jobs are good for society!" The WPA and CCC created jobs. Capitalists would be just as happy to have the work done by machines that don't take bathroom breaks or get pregnant. They run businesses which employ people but calling them job creators is just marketing. They're employers, or labor brokers.
@abundance @Devilstower Don't misunderstand, by the way. I don't think employers are inherently evil people, many are actually sharp enough to realize that a satisfied workforce benefits them and it's worth making a bit less gross profit to have staff who are happy, productive, and not always looking for the next job. This is NOT a universal attitude among employers, however.
@dkbgeek @Devilstower I agree with that. I don't blame employers. I think the system is the problem. When everyone is supposed to maximize profits you can't really fault employers for doing just that. My point was that it's not inaccurate to say that employers create jobs - even if they don't do it out of the kindness of their heart or if the term is just for PR.
HighlandLawyer@abundance @Devilstower Because you need capital to acquire all the equipment, site, etc to do the work. So those who start off with money can, solely from their luck of being born into wealth, obtain all that equipment, & employ those who are not from a wealthy background to do the actual work.
Making business creation loans reasonably accessible to individual workers or co-operatives could get around that
Making business creation loans reasonably accessible to individual workers or co-operatives could get around that
@HighlandLawyer @Devilstower Not all businesses are successful solely for already having capital. If that were the case you'd have no economic mobility at all in society.
Adam Jacobs 🇺🇦@abundance @Devilstower I think it's all because it's not a zero sum game. In many cases, if employees just went and got on with their labour by themselves, their labour would be worth less than it is as part of a well-organised company.
So for a business to hire someone can be a win-win: the employer pays less than the labour is worth, but the employees still make more than they would do without the employer.
Doesn't mean it always works that way, of course.
@statsguy @Devilstower Agree. I also don't think most employers are mere rent-seekers. They risk their investment in the business and they spend their time & money to make the business successful.
If employees could make as much money without the employer - well, then they should.
@abundance @Devilstower Yes, and indeed in many situations it's totally normal for employees to work for themselves. If I wanted to call a carpenter to fix some floorboards, for example, I'd almost certainly call a self-employed one.
Doesn't work so well if you want someone to build you a ship.
RED HOT CHILI@abundance @statsguy @Devilstower Most oft time it is not even the money of the "employeer" but some book-entry money or from capital market.
@rote_chili @statsguy @Devilstower sure. And that's part of the risk also. No one loans out money risk-free. What happens if the employer doesn't pay back? They're likely to lose their business.
@abundance @statsguy @Devilstower OK, and what about finance-crisis, ... in case of a crisis the risk and losses are covered by society most of the time.
@rote_chili @abundance @Devilstower Seems to me there is an important distinction here between big businesses and small businesses.
Big businesses are often supported by financial institutions, rather than any entrepreneurs risking their own money.
Very different for small businesses. As a former small business owner, I can promise you that the government doesn't come and bail you out if you go bust.