Labor Day Without Jobs: Exposing the "Job Creator" Fraud

Monday, September 3, 2012 by Common Dreams
by Paul Buchheit

With cunning and contempt and catechismal fervor the super-rich have argued that all money should move to the top, where it will be used to stimulate the economy and create jobs. But they ignore the facts that prove them wrong. And it doesn't take much to prove them wrong.

1. First, a look at the success of the super-rich: Money has quickly moved to the top
Based on IRS figures, the richest 1% nearly tripled its share of America's after-tax income from 1980 to 2006. That's an extra trillion dollars a year. Then, in the first year after the 2008 recession, they took 93% of all the new income.

Wealth is even more skewed. The richest 10% own 83% of financial wealth, which they've skillfully arranged to be taxed at just 15%, ostensibly because they pump that money back into job-creating ventures. More on that misconception later.

Conservatives claim that wealth inequality has remained steady for the richest Americans. But data from Edward Wolff shows that the excess wealth was simply redistributed among the rest of the top 5%, who saw their share of America's net worth increase by 18 percent from 1983 to 2007. It was also noted by Sam Pizzigati that much of the top-level wealth was socked away tax-free overseas, a fact largely confirmed by a Tax Justice Network study.

2. Corporations are just as successful: profits have doubled, taxes cut in half
While corporate profits have doubled to $1.9 trillion in less than ten years, the corporate income tax rate, which for thirty years hovered around the 20-25% level, suddenly dropped to 10% after the recession. The biggest firms basically said "We're not paying."

That's a half-trillion dollars a year unpaid by the very companies who have successfully convinced much of America that their tax rates are too high.

The tax they actually pay is very low relative to other countries. U.S. corporations paid a smaller rate of income taxes than all but two of the OECD countries analyzed by the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau. A Treasury report agreed, noting that the Tax/GDP rate for U.S. companies was 35% lower than the OECD average from 2000 to 2005.

Corporations even pay less than low-wage American workers. On their 2011 profits of $1.97 trillion, corporations paid $181 billion in federal income taxes (9%) and $40 billion in state income taxes (2%), for a total income tax burden of 11%. The poorest 20% of American citizens pay 17.4% in federal, state, and local taxes.

3. Some Non-Job-Creation Facts
The Wall Street Journal noted in 2009 that the Bush tax cuts led to the "worst track record for jobs in recorded history." 25 million people remain unemployed or underemployed, with 30 to 50 percent of recent college graduates in one of those categories. Among unemployed workers, nearly 43 percent have been without a job for six months or longer.

For the jobs that remain, most are low-paying, with the only real employment growth occurring in retail sales and food preparation. A recent report by the National Employment Law Project confirms that lower-wage occupations (up to about $14 per hour) accounted for 21 percent of recession losses and 58 percent of recovery growth, while mid-wage occupations (between $14 and $21 per hour) accounted for 60 percent of recession losses and only 22 percent of recovery growth.

The minimum wage is shamefully low, about 30% lower than the inflation-adjusted 1968 figure. And the tiny pay can't be blamed on small business. Two-thirds of America's low-wage workers, according to another National Employment Law Project report, work for companies that have at least 100 employees.

All these job woes persist while productivity has continued to grow, with an 80% increase since 1973 as median worker pay has stagnated.

4. So what are the "job creators" doing with all their money?

Over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate. Business startup costs made up less than 1% of the investments of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011.

Perhaps, instead, they're building businesses on their own? No. Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals were entrepreneurs in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. They come from the middle class.

That deserves repeating. Entrepreneurs come from the middle class.

Not surprisingly, then, since the middle class has been depleted by the steady accumulation of wealth at the top, the number of entrepreneurs per capita has decreased 53% since 1977, and the number of self-employed Americans has decreased 20% since 1991.

5. Big business is even worse at job creation

First of all, the cash holdings for non-financial U.S. firms increased to $1.24 trillion in 2011, with about 57 percent of it stashed overseas. Commerce Department figures show that U.S. companies cut their work forces by 2.9 million from 2000 to 2009 while increasing overseas employment by 2.4 million.

The top holders of cash, including Apple and Google and Intel and Coca Cola and Chevron, are also spending their money on stock buybacks (which increase stock option prices), dividends to investors, and subsidiary acquisitions. According to Bloomberg, share repurchasing is at one of its highest levels in 25 years.

6. The Big Fraud: Tax us less, and the jobs will come

Despite their unwillingness to invest in jobs, and even in the face of damning evidence against their tax myths, the super-rich fight like wildcats at any suggestion that they support the country that provided their wealth. Way back in 1984, right after the Reagan tax cuts, theU.S. Treasury Department came to the obvious but belated conclusion that tax cuts cause a loss of revenue. A 2006 Treasury Department study found that extending the Bush tax cuts would have no beneficial effect on the U.S. economy. Other sources have confirmed that economic growth was fastest in years with relatively high top marginal tax rates.

Ample evidence exists to show that no relationship exists between the capital gains tax rate and investment. As noted in the Washington Post, "The top tax rate on investment income has bounced up and down over the past 80 years - from as high as 39.9 percent in 1977 to just 15 percent today - yet investment just appears to grow with the cycle, seemingly unaffected." In fact, the low rate may even have a negative effect on growth. A Congressional Research Service report states: "Capital gains tax rate increases appear to increase public saving and may have little or no effect on private saving. Consequently, capital gains tax increases likely have a positive overall impact on national saving and investment."

7. So what becomes of the jobs?

Corporations are hoarding over a trillion dollars. The richest 1% take a trillion dollars a yearmore than productivity-based earnings since 1980. Over eight trillion untaxed dollars is being hidden overseas.

That's a present value of ten trillion misdirected dollars. Just 1/10 of that would create 25 million jobs, one for every unemployed or underemployed worker in America. Or a $45,000 a year job for every college student in the United States.

But the people who call themselves "job creators" do nothing to make that happen.

How the "Job Creators" REALLY Spend Their Money

Tuesday, May 29, 2012 by Common Dreams

by Paul Buchheit

 

In his "Gospel of Wealth," Andrew Carnegie argued that average Americans should welcome the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, because the "superior wisdom, experience, and ability" of the rich would ensure benefits for all of us. More recently, Edward Conard, the author of "Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong, said: "As a society, we're not offering our talented few large enough rewards. We're underpaying our 'risk takers.'"

Does wealthy America have a point, that giving them all the money will ensure it's disbursed properly, and that it will create jobs and stimulate small business investment while ultimately benefiting society? Big business CEOs certainly think so, claiming in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that an increase in the capital gains tax would reduce investment "when we need capital formation here in America to create jobs and expand our economy."

They don't cite evidence for their claims, because the evidence proves them wrong. Here are the facts:

The Very Rich Don't Like Making Risky Investments

Marketwatch estimates that over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate. According to economist Richard Wolff, about half of the assets of the richest 1% are held in unincorporated business equity (personal business accounts). The Wall Street Journal notes that over three-quarters of individuals worth over $20 million are invested in hedge funds.

Angel investing (capital provided by affluent individuals for business start-ups) accounted for less than 1% of the investable assets of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011.

The Mendelsohn Affluent Survey confirmed that the very rich spend less than two percent of their money on new business startups. The last thing most of them want, apparently, is the risky business of hiring people for new innovation.

The Very Rich Don't Like Taking On Risky Jobs

CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals made up about 60 percent of the richest 1% of Americans in 2005. Only 3 percent were entrepreneurs. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds.The biggest investment by corporations is overseas, where they keep 57 percent of their cash and fill their factories with low-wage workers. Commerce Department figures show that U.S. companies cut their work forces by 2.9 million from 2000 to 2009 while increasing overseas employment by 2.4 million.

In fact, the very rich may not care about U.S. jobs in any form. Surveys reveal that 60 percent of investors worth $25 million or more are investing up to a third of their total assets overseas. Back home, the extra wealth created by the Bush tax cuts led to "worst track record" for jobs in recorded history. The true American job creator, as venture capitalist Nick Hanauer would agree, is the middle-class consumer.

The Very Rich Corporations Don't Like Spending On America

How do corporations spend their money? To a good extent, they don't. According to Moody's, cash holdings for U.S. non-financial firms rose 3 percent to $1.24 trillion in 2011. The corporate cash-to-assets ratio nearly tripled between 1980 and 2010. It has been estimated that the corporate stash of cash reserves held in America could employ 3.5 million more people for five years at an annual salary of $40,000.

The top holders of cash, including Apple and Google and Intel and Coca Cola and Chevron, are spending their money on stock buybacks (which increase stock option prices), dividends to investors, and subsidiary acquisitions. According to Bloomberg, share repurchasing is at one of its highest levels in 25 years.

Apple claims to have added 500,000 jobs to the economy, but that includes app-building tech enthusiasts and Fedex drivers delivering iPhones. The company actually has 47,000 U.S. employees, about one-tenth of General Motors' workforce in the 1990s.

The biggest investment by corporations is overseas, where they keep 57 percent of their cash and fill their factories with low-wage workers. Commerce Department figures show that U.S. companies cut their work forces by 2.9 million from 2000 to 2009 while increasing overseas employment by 2.4 million. They also tap into a "brain drain" of foreign entrepreneurs, scientists, and medical professionals rather than supporting education in America.

One last way corporations see fit to spend their money: executive bonuses. Especially at the banks, where the extra stipends are often paid for with zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve.

The richest individuals and corporations are really good at building up fortunes. They're even better at building up their "job creator" myth.

Venture Capitalist Nick Hanauer Says Rich People DON'T Create Jobs

The Ronald Reagan MYTH — The greatest PR SWINDLE of the our age

Rich People DON'T Create Jobs: 6 Myths That Have to Be Killed for Our Economy to Live

These zombie talking points aren't just wrong; they're dangerous. If we're ever going to revive the economy, we've got to tackle them head on.

By Kevin Drum, Mother Jones
Posted on December 10, 2011

In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character is forced to relive a single day over and over and over—waking up to the same song every morning, meeting the same people, having the same conversations—until, after thousands of repetitions, he finally realizes what a shmo he's been his entire life. With that epiphany, the calendar starts to flip forward again. His life reboots, and he once again gets to hear new songs, meet new people, and have entirely new conversations.

 

When it comes to the economy, we're stuck in our own version of Groundhog Day—and this one doesn't seem to be coming to an end. America is in a deep and persistent slump, and unemployment is mired at more than 9 percent. Yet when you turn on the TV, all you hear are the same manufactured sound bites delivered in the same apocalyptic tones from the same pack of talking heads—over and over and over. Groundhog Day has turned into the eighth circle of hell.

Unfortunately, these zombie talking points aren't just wrong; they're dangerous. If we're ever going to revive the economy, we've got to tackle them head on. Here are six of the worst.


MYTH #1: THE STIMULUS FAILEDFor the first four years of his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt tackled the Great Depression with inflation, easy monetary policy, and government spending. But in 1937, FDR's advisers persuaded him to reverse gears. After all, interest rates had been close to zero for years, commodity prices were climbing, and fear of inflation was on the rise.

Bust or Boost?

What happened next is now called the "Mistake of 1937" (PDF). Federal spending was cut and monetary policy was tightened up, with disastrous results: GDP immediately began to plummet, and industrial production fell by a third. Within a year everyone had had enough. In 1938 the austerity program was abandoned, and the economy started to grow again.

The truth is that stimulus worked in 1933 and it worked in 2009. So why is our economy still in such bad shape? For one, partly due to political considerations and partly because it was rushed through Congress, the 2009 stimulus wasn't as well designed as it could have been. It was also sold badly. If the bill passed, administration economists predicted, unemployment would peak at 8 percent and then start declining (PDF). But the recession was far worse than the White House originally thought. Unemployment peaked in the double digits, and that's made the stimulus a fat target for Republican critics ever since.

But as awkward as it is to argue that things would have been worse without the stimulus—"Not as bad as it could have been!" isn't a winning slogan—well, the truth is that things would have been a lot worse without the stimulus. Everyone from the nonpartisanCongressional Budget Office (PDF) to private-sector forecasting firms have concluded that it increased economic growth, reduced unemployment, and put millions of people back to work. It just wasn't big enough, or long-lasting enough. Unfortunately, this has given conservatives an opening to demand tighter money and lower spending—exactly the same mistake we made in 1937.


MYTH #2: THE DEFICIT IS OUR BIGGEST PROBLEMIf your credit card company offered you $30,000 interest-free to buy a car, would you take the deal? Sure you would. It's a three-way win: You replace your clunker, the auto industry keeps its assembly lines humming, and the credit card company is happy to have made a safe loan, even at no interest. Apparently, they think you're a pretty good credit risk.


The Bush Effect

This is pretty much the situation the US government is in now. If our national debt were really at dire and unsustainable levels, as conservative economists and Republican leaders have taken to arguing, nervous investors would be driving up interest rates on federal borrowing. But just the opposite has happened: As I'm writing this, 10-year real treasury yields are at 0.00 percent. The seven-year rate is actually negative. Apparently, the financial markets think we're a pretty good credit risk.

It's true that the United States needs to address its long-term deficit problem—a problem almost entirely due to Medicare and other health care expenditures. (Domestic, defense, and Social Security spending have actually decreased as a percentage of GDP over the past 40 years, and there's no reason to think that's about to change.) But that's in the long term. Right now, our problem is a sluggish economy and too many people out of work. The real answer to future deficits is to spend money now to get the economy growing again.
America's infrastructure is crumbling, there are people who could be put to work fixing it, and banks are practically begging us to take their money. A trillion dollars in infrastructure spending would be good for our economy today, good for economic growth tomorrow, and thanks to those low interest rates (and the increased revenue that would come from growth), it wouldn't even increase our debt much. As they say, only an idiot turns down free money.

Only an Idiot Turns Down Free Money

MYTH $3: LOWER TAXES ARE THE BEST WAY TO GROW THE ECONOMYThere's no greater orthodoxy in the Republican Party than unconditional fealty to tax cuts. In a recent GOP debate, when the candidates were asked whether they'd walk away from a deficit deal that included just $1 in tax increases for every $10 in spending cuts, every single hand shot up.

Taxes have been the third rail of American politics ever since the California tax revolt of 1978. Even Democrats are nervous about touching them: President Obama has famously called for letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire, but he's always careful to make it clear that he wouldn't change rates for anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. In other words, he'd repeal less than a quarter of the Bush tax cuts.

This fear is easy to understand. No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation.

Recent US history backs this up too. Bill Clinton raised tax rates in 1993, and Republicans insisted it would cripple the economy. Instead, the economy boomed. In 2001 and 2003, George W. Bush lowered taxes and Republicans insisted the economy would flourish. Instead, we got the weakest expansion of the past century. Republicans are simply wrong about taxes: Within reason, high tax rates don't hinder growth, and low tax rates don't stimulate it.

But don't high taxes reduce the incentive for people to work? Actually, no: For ordinary wage earners, participation in the job force and total hours worked barely respond to taxes at all. (According to tax specialists Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija, this is "a rare example of a question on which there is a broad consensus among economists.") The same is true for rich people. As a trio of prominent economists concluded last year after reviewing the literature, "there is no compelling evidence to date of real economic responses to tax rates" (PDF). Even capital gains rates have virtually no impact: During the past few decades, they've bounced up and down from 40 percent to their post-Depression low of 15 percent. The effect on business investment is nil.

If a Tax Rate Falls...

 

Will the Economy Notice?

 

 

 

MYTH #4: REGULATORY UNCERTAINTY IS CLOGGING THE ECONOMYAre American businesses paralyzed by fear of a tidal wave of new regulations?

When McClatchy reporter Kevin Hall went out and asked small-business owners about this, he got a clear answer. "Absolutely, positively not," said one. "Government regulations are not choking our business," said another. In its most recent quarterly survey (PDF) of small-business trends, the National Federation of Independent Business reports that sales—i.e., lack of demand—is the No. 1 concern, beating out taxes, regulations, inflation, and everything else.

The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line

 

In any case, regardless of what the Wall Street Journal editorial page says, the Obama administration has hardly been a whirlwind of regulatory activity. Its health care reform will have very little effect on either small businesses (which are exempt) or large businesses (which mostly offer health plans already) and only a modest effect on medium-size businesses (PDF). Its financial reform bill affects only the financial sector. Its proposed new air-quality regulations will mostly affect old coal-fired electrical plants that would have shut down anyway (PDF).

Dumb and outdated regulations are no friends to the economy—and the Obama administration has undertaken a regulatory review that's projected to save an estimated $10 billion during the next five years. But as welcome as that is, our economy's biggest problem right now isn't regulatory uncertainty. It's economic uncertainty.


MYTH #5: the President IS DEBASING THE DOLLARIn one of the most infamous moments of his young candidacy, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry decided to tee off on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last summer. "If this guy prints more money between now and the election," he told an enthusiastic audience in Cedar Rapids, "I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."

Bernanke's sin? Pumping money into the banking system after the collapse of 2008. Although this is widely credited with helping prevent a second Great Depression, tea partiers and gold bugs are convinced that Bernanke's actions have debased the dollar. There are two problems with that claim. First, it's not true. Second, we'd be better off if it were.

First things first: Has the dollar lost value under Bernanke and Obama? No. The usual measure for the strength of the dollar is called "trade-weighted value." In July 2008, just before the financial crisis erupted in earnest, the greenback's value stood at 95.4. As I'm writing this in mid-September, it has gone up, then down, and is currently sitting at 96.1.Taking a longer view, the dollar lost value under Reagan and Bush I, gained value under Clinton, lost value under Bush II, and has mostly stayed steady under Obama. There's just no basis to the claim that Obama and Bernanke have debased the currency.

And that's unfortunate. As economist Dean Baker is fond of pointing out, if we want to get our national savings rate up and our long-term budget deficit down, there's only one way to do it: by fixing our massive trade deficit. We have to import less and export more, and one way to make that happen is with a weaker dollar. A weaker dollar makes foreign goods more expensive, so we'll buy less of them, and makes American goods cheaper, so others will buy more of them.

The truth is that we'd be better off if we ditched the loaded "strong/weak" terminology and just talked about an "export dollar" (weak) and an "import dollar" (strong). Sometimes one is good, and sometimes the other is. The Chinese, for example, have done well for decades with an export yuan. Likewise, an export dollar would be our friend right now.

Bad News for Tourists...

 

Is a Holiday for Manufacturers

MYTH #6: IF YOU UNSHACKLE THE RICH, THEY'LL REV UP THE ECONOMYThink of this as the supermyth—the one underlying so many other fallacies. For decades, America's economic policies have been based on the notion that catering to corporations and the wealthy is the way to stimulate the economy. Republicans routinely insist that we need to bail them out, lower their taxes, allow them to repatriate hundreds of billions in overseas profits, and free them from annoying government meddling. If we don't, the "job creators" will stay in a funk, and the economy will stay in a rut.

But here's a pesky fact neither corporate America nor the GOP establishment is trumpeting: After-tax corporate profits are currently at an all-time high. The problem businesses face isn't lack of cash but rather a lack of confidence that consumer demand will pick up in the future. So they're not expanding or hiring at the rate they should be.

Rich people don't create jobs when we hand them big windfalls. They create jobs when the economy is growing and they have customers for their businesses. And the key to solving that problem, at least during a deep economic slump like the one we're in now, is to focus like a laser on more stimulus, easier money, higher inflation, and a weaker currency. Unless we want to relive 1937 over and over and over again. As Bill Murray said,
"Anything different is good."

Wall Street's Gain...

 

Main Street's Pain