The Great Obama Job Shuffle

The Weekly Standard ^ | July 19, 2010 | Jim Prevor

[JimPrevor]

USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development Victor Vasquez justified the loan guarantees for the Nebraska greenhouse and the Oregon winery – and a group of other food producers from a potato chip maker to a cheese factory – by explaining that “This funding will help create and save jobs and build on America's economic recovery.”

But it won’t. It can’t. It can only reshuffle jobs from other producers. The Obama administration is acting as if it doesn’t know the difference between local economic development and a national increase in jobs. Fortunately, “Recovery Summer” tours notwithstanding, American voters do seem to know the difference.

[JimPrevor]

...if local boosters in Holland, Michigan, wanted to improve their community by converting an old auto parts plant to a milk processing plant, then more power to them. It might increase jobs and economic activity in town and get rid of an eyesore, but those milk processing jobs will come from some other areas.

There is really no reason for the federal government to be involved in this case. Certainly there is no reason to think of these 70 jobs as some net addition to the nation’s job rolls.

[bigbob]

The fundamental flaw in thinking that led to the stimulus is a failure to understand that growth only occurs when demand is increased. Otherwise it’s just re-distribution.

If the gov’t is going to meddle, far better for it to meddle in ways that stimulate increased demand (i.e. like the space program did in the 60s for aerospace and electronic technologies) - than for it to facilitate meaningless “activity” that just shifts money/jobs from one place to another.

[FrankR]