VINDICATION DONESN'T MAKE ME FEEL GOOD

I’ve been saying it for months: the turnaround in U.S, employment isn’t going to happen because private business is simply not ready to hire. And why should they? I have said it over and over again: business looks out for itself, that’s what the marketplace is all about.

In Saturday’s Globe, front page of Report on Business: “Caution keeps cash-rich U.S, employers from hiring!” Corporations have been cost-cutting and piling up profits. Hedge Funds and other “investors” are enriching themselves speculating with money borrowed at almost zero rates of interest, far less than the profits from their trading. The stock market has boomed, with the exception of a blip every time the government announces a less-than-expected job increase. The fact is that corporations are now endowed with a responsibility to make the government look good. On the contrary, they maybe instrumental in helping to savage the Obama administration's employment failure.

Interesting that the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, decry the idea of “tax increases” (actually return to pre-Bush tax rates) and declare: tax cuts are “job killers.” How preposterous and contradictory that statement is. And how blind to the reality the American public seems to be. If the accumulation of more money will result in more jobs, why isn’t it happening? How have they managed to hoodwink millions of Americans into believing that the deficit is the biggest problem? How indeed, when every survey indicates that given a choice between cuts to Social Security and Medicare and big tax breaks – they simply won’t tolerate cuts to essential services. They make it sound less than essential by calling them “entitlements.” Some Republican congressmen can be heard warning that America will become another Greece if it doesn't turn back the deficit. And they’re buying it!

Business says they won’t hire until “the economy starts to look O.K” But of course the irony is that the economy won’t look O.K. until hiring begins. However, I insist that it is neither the obligation nor the prerogative of private business to step up and give it up for the country. An interesting sidelight: some businesses are hiring but at much lower wages. They are using the recession to continue to do cost-cutting at the expense of working folks.

Black to my old saw: this is where only the government can make it happen. But every time there is even a hint that government will start spending to create jobs the howls of “socialism and chaos and bankruptcy” rise up. I’m really starting to feel sorry for Obama. He did squander his goodwill in the first year with a hopeless stab at bipartisanship and by the time he came to his sense the Republicans had taken over The House. Now of course, everyone – one third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives is looking at next November. Everything they do is dedicated to re-election, even if it means continuing to support fatally flawed financial policies.

China does it differently. The “government” acts independently of public opinion. They decide, even with many Chinese still in poverty, to spend billions to build a high speed rail line connecting Shanghai and Beijing. Our press asked the question: “How would you like to travel from Toronto to Moncton in just six hours?” What they do is ultimately good for the country. Massive rail-building is labor-intensive. By the way, much more labour intensive than building highways. But in the U.S. so much of that government largesse was spent to widen highways to be driveN on by people who can’t afford the gas for their cars.

More than enough irony to go around.