Useless Canards and the Jobless Recovery

Facing Facts on the 'Jobless' Recovery
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125746080945231961.html?mod=djemITP#articleTabs%3Darticle

• Some say that Jobless recoveries are the residue of the expansion of globalization. That each recovery is worse than the last one. That endless mergers and labor arbitrage will leave the US with a few big transnational corporations owned largely by foreign investors.

But why does this appear to be happening? Are we really looking in the right places?

Almost everyone receiving them likes government services that come at what appears to be little or no cost. No one really contemplates where this generosity is coming from.

Americans need to realize that there is NO FREE LUNCH.

Retirement at age 50 costs something. Almost free and limitless healthcare costs something.

The bottom line is all this generosity (which is tax or borrowing supported) is costing the US economic vitality and jobs.

We are hurting ourselves and refuse to see it.

• Some people even go so far as to cough up the old canard that no more wealth can be created so dividing up what exists is all that can be done.

One look at the wealth being created in China should dispel this canard for good. So should one look at companies like Google – or, even turning on the internet or getting in your car.

Yes, certain things aren’t around anymore; but, in the aggregate, the total amount of wealth and the better quality of life produced by the creative destruction of capitalism is growing and can grow – unless, that is, capital and the ability of capital to create wealth is compromised.

And, this compromising of capital’s ability to create wealth is exactly what has been happening in America – and, the seat of this destruction sits in Congress and the White House, with unions and with government.