Where Are The Jobs? Why Are So Few Hiring?

I've seen alot of squawking on the Internet about how corporations and businesses are sitting on $8 trillion in assets but won't hire new workers. As the husband of a woman who owns a small business, I have yet to see any of that $8 trillion in my wife's bookkeeping.

But, even if that $8 trillion really existed, the question of so few hirings would have nothing to do with that money and have everything to do with government constantly intervening in economic matters, usually at the expense of the economy in general.

John Stossel has this to say about why there are so few new hires right now:

The problem today is that the economy is not being left alone. Instead, it is haunted by uncertainty on a hundred fronts. When rules are unintelligible and unpredictable, when new workers are potential threats because of Labor Department regulations, businesses have little confidence to hire. President Obama's vaunted legislative record not only left entrepreneurs with the burden of bigger government, it also makes it impossible for them to accurately estimate the new burden. In at least three big areas — health insurance, financial regulation, and taxes — no one can know what will happen. New intrusive rules for health insurance are yet to be written, and those rules will affect hiring, since most health insurance is provided by employers. Thanks to the new 2,300 page Dodd-Frank finance regulatory act, The Wall Street Journal reports, there will be "no fewer than 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies." These as-yet unknown rules will govern lending to business and other key financial activity. The George W. Bush tax cuts might be allowed to expire. But maybe not. Social Security and Medicare are dangerously shaky. Will Congress raise the payroll tax? A "distinguished" deficit commission is meeting. What will it do? Recommend a value-added tax? Who knows? But few employers will commit to a big investment with those clouds hanging over our heads.

It wouldn't matter if the assets totaled more than $8 quadrillion or $8 quintillion. With uncertainty like this coming out of the Obama White House and the Pelosi-Reid Congress, hiring on the scale we need to boost the economy is not going to happen anytime soon.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Big Government Policies Aren't Creating New Jobs
John Stossel
NewsMax.com
August 24, 2010