Thread: Steve Jobs and Jobs

Mitch Daniels, in his response to Obama's SOTU, suggested Steve Jobs was a great job creator. The thing is, Jobs was a great job creator for other countries besides the US. And besides being lured by lower wages in countries like China, manufacturers are also lured by a manufacturing infrastructure.

Mr. Daniels first berated the president for his “constant disparagement of people in business,” which happens to be a complete fabrication. Mr. Obama has never done anything of the sort. He went on: “The late Steve Jobs — what a fitting name he had — created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the president borrowed and blew.”
Clearly, Mr. Daniels doesn’t have much of a future in the humor business. But, more to the point, anyone who reads The New York Times knows that his assertion about job creation was completely false: Apple employs very few people in this country.

Krugman goes on to explain why the auto industry bailout was so important even to Ford even though Ford did not receive direct bailout money. Without the bailout the producers and suppliers would have dwindled and that would have been disastrous for Ford, not to mention the unemployment rate would have soared even higher.

And Chinese manufacturing isn’t the only conspicuous example of these advantages in the modern world. Germany remains a highly successful exporter even with workers who cost, on average, $44 an hour — much more than the average cost of American workers. And this success has a lot to do with the support its small and medium-sized companies — the famed Mittelstand — provide to each other via shared suppliers and the maintenance of a skilled work force.
The point is that successful companies — or, at any rate, companies that make a large contribution to a nation’s economy — don’t exist in isolation. Prosperity depends on the synergy between companies, on the cluster, not the individual entrepreneur.

Wow. Shades of Elizabeth Warren.

So we should be grateful to Mr. Daniels for his remarks Tuesday. He got his facts wrong, but he did, unintentionally, manage to highlight an important philosophical difference between the parties. One side believes that economies succeed solely thanks to heroic entrepreneurs; the other has nothing against entrepreneurs, but believes that entrepreneurs need a supportive environment, and that sometimes government has to help create or sustain that supportive environment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/op...cars.html?_r=2

This is the point that lefties have been trying to make. We don't hate business owners - hell! we don't even hate big business - what we want is economic policies that recognize that no man is an island and no business is either.

Originally Posted by trumptman

First Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States which is more than twice as many as it employs overseas.

As for this claim....

One side believes that economies succeed solely thanks to heroic entrepreneurs; the other has nothing against entrepreneurs, but believes that entrepreneurs need a supportive environment, and that sometimes government has to help create or sustain that supportive environment.

It is a total mischaracterization of what both sides believe.

First think about what is being discussed. There is the claim that one business isn't an island. Instead of acting alone it provides much economic work and opportunity for many other businesses around it. In fact overtime entire ecosystems of businesses rise together.

That sounds just like.... trickle down economics. It sounds like a rising tide lifts all boats. It shows that Republican contentions about the rich are entirely true. A business isn't just an island. It doesn't just gather all their money made and stick it in a vault. Instead it seeks returns and in doing that employs others and even allows other to create new and complementary businesses.

Second Republicans do support infrastructure and education. The problem is that Democrats spend said things on buying votes via entitlement and income transfer programs. We see this most in the blue states like California where I live. The state is too broke to build or maintain roads but they can offer in-state tuition rates and even financial aid for illegal immigrants.

This is very disingenuous. From your own link:

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

So, why aren't any of those 700,000 employed in the US? Because Americans are too dumb? Or lazy? Or not educated enough in the right areas? No. Because Americans expect to earn a living wage. And the manufacturers would rather pay their CEOs big bucks than invest in America and Americans. I find that very unpatriotic. But maybe that's just me.

Originally Posted by Jacquelope

Really? Prove it. Show that you're not just making shit up. If you're going to take that kind of insulting childish attitude then at least back it up. Hard numbers or GTFO.

Did you read my post?