Business and the Liberal Mind Set

I like to think, that I can understand most people's points of view. I try to keep an open mind, and attempt to understand the multiple sides to a story. That story, though has to make some sort of logical sense. Things that don't make logical sense to me, I try to study to see if there is some sort of sense that I can not make out. If it does not make sense after study, I reject the idea as nonsense. Such is the case with Liberals and business.

From what I can gather... Liberals, I am talking about pretty much anybody involved in Government for more than a year or so, seem to believe that jobs, along with everything else, can simply be legislated in to existence. I have a very hard time with this. It makes no sense to me. Here is my confusion:

I have a business that produces something. I make cupcakes or wedding cakes or those boobie cakes that I see on TV... bobbies.... wait... what was I saying? Oh yeah, so I produce something. It doesn't matter what I produce, just that something is produced. I find that there are not enough hours in the day for me to get all of my work done, and I realize that if I had someone else working with me, I could expand my bobbie cake making. So, I work out how much money I can pay this new person so that with the minimal amount of expansion I can make back the costs of the employment. I do interviews and negotiate a salary with the candidate that I think will work with me the best. We work together and are able to produce more, take on more customers and make more money.

Simplistically, this is how business works. This is how jobs are created. The only obligation that the business has is to make its owner money. That is what it is there for. Money. Quality of product, customer service, clean bathrooms, all of that noise is there to increase the volume of customers coming in my door.

The business has expenses as well. The business needs to have a certain number of paying customers in order to remain in business. The utility bills need to be paid, the rent, or mortgage on my premises needs to be paid, the salary of my worker needs to be paid, and any taxes levied against the business needs to be paid. Yes, taxes are an expense of the business. I need to offset their cost by selling product. The more taxes the business pays, the more I have to charge per item to make up the cost. So, in the end, it is the consumer, not the business, who pays the business taxes.

So, it seems obvious to most people that when Government intervenes in business, it drives up the cost of business. Thus, the minimum amount of intervention seems prudent. It also seems obvious, to me anyway, that the only intervention of government in to business should be local government. Local government knows better how to handle the unique issues of its area. How can a federal government official, born in New York City, best know what is good for a boobie cake business in rural Wyoming? They can't. What's more they shouldn't try. Only an arrogant, pompous, douche bag would think they could do that.

However... Some things that have been said, recently, by prominent liberals have made me scratch my head. I don't get it. Yesterday in front of the Chamber of Commerce, President Obama stated:

If we make America the best place to do business, businesses should make their mark in America. They should set up shop here, and hire our workers, and pay decent wages, and invest in the future of this nation. That’s their obligation.

What? Really? No, that is not their obligation. Not at all. Who decides what is "decent wages"? The boobie cake business pays its workers as little as it can. Why? Not because it is evil, but because it only has so much that it can pay the workers and still turn a profit. If it does not turn a profit, then nobody is employed. If Government forces a certain wage on the business, the business will either go out of business, or not hire any more workers.
As the President, Mr. Obama makes statements that the Federal Government will act on. Again, how can someone born in Hawaii, raised all over the world, resides in Chicago, and works in Washington D.C. possibly decide what is decent wages in rural Wyoming? See previous statement.

During the Super Bowl, Will.I.Am of The Black Eyed Peas said in his song:

Obama, let’s get these kids educated, create jobs so the country stays stimulated.

What can the President do to create jobs? By our previous study, he can get out of business' way. Was that what Will.I.Am wants the President to do? Judging by Will.I.Am's previous statements, I very much doubt it. The Community Reinvestment Act was an attempt by Government to stimulate the economy and create jobs on a massive (Trillion dollar) scale. What happened? Nothing but more red ink. I am reminded of a story told of Milton Freedman when he was in China:

Prof. Friedman visited China in the early 1960s and was taken by a government official to see a public works project. Chinese workers were building a canal. Friedman was struck by seeing everyone digging the canal with shovels. Friedman asked the official, "why no heavy earth-moving equipment?" The official said, "oh, this is a jobs program." So Friedman then says to the official, "then why don't you just give them spoons instead of shovels to create even more jobs?

This seems to be the ultimate policy of the liberals. They want to "invest" in infrastructure by handing out spoons so that more people have a job. It makes no sense.

It seems that the liberal wants to fundamentally change the obligation of business. This is an impossible task. That would be akin to fundamentally changing the obligation of the heart from pumping blood to filtering toxins. Just as the heart is not the liver, business can not change what it is. You can, however, change the focus of business from the individual to the state. If business is owned by the state, then the business' obligation is to enrich or "invest" in, to use the nomenclature of the day, the state.

So we come back to the same tired conclusion. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has the internal organs of a duck, and the DNA of a duck, it is most likely not a monkey. Why do we persist in calling the liberal a monkey, when they are, in fact, a duck?



**Corrected for wrong name***