Why Won't They Hire Anyone?

Kathmandu Traffic - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

One nurse is over 60 and working full time plus overtime, while the other is over 70 and working part time.  Both are competent and a pleasure to have in the operating room.  They also offered two stories last week which put the presidential campaign in perspective:

One’s son is a small business owner in Fresno and sought to hire a full time employee at $10 per hour.  He posted the position on Craig’s List and within the first twenty four hours received 300 inquiries, including applicants with masters degrees.

The second’s family lives in Iowa, one of the battleground states where the presidential candidates actually have to campaign.  The President was speaking at Iowa State University to a group of students which included the nurse’s niece.  Making student loans more available with flexible repayment provisions was the chosen topic and right up the President’s alley.  He has shown himself to be unusually adept at funding but not so specific about the difficult part: the payback part.  When the young woman told her mother about the President’s generosity, she replied, “A lot of good that is going to do you, if you can borrow more money to pay for an education but can’t find a job.”

The New York Times reported this morning that according to the liberal National Employment Law Project, 58% of all jobs created during this administration pay from $7.69 to $13.83 per hour, while most job losses have occurred in the middle third of the wage spectrum.  This is indeed sobering when one of the President’s own advocacy groups paints such a dismal picture of his performance.  Try as he may, the President cannot force the private sector to hire, and he is unwilling to ease regulations and tax burdens which would allow the private sector to add good paying jobs to the economy.

The President’s economic vision is reminiscent of the East German Trabant automobile manufactured during the Communist years.  Authorities touted it as the people’s car and East Germany’s answer to the VW.  Central planners were convinced the Trabant with its smog belching two stoke engine, shoddy construction, and production delays was the car their citizens dreams, and if they did not like it, then that was their problem.  What the East Germans received was one of the worst cars ever produced.  From its inception until its demise when West and East Germany reunified and exposed it to competition for the first time, it epitomized ineptness and the total misunderstanding of human nature and market forces.