NJ governor: cut state income tax rate on income over $500,000

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Find me a job created by a poor person.

Supply and demand. Poor people are consumers. Ask the company who makes Pampers, where most of their money comes from. Manual labor is as much a commodity as is money. You can't separate those two. You can't throw dollars on the ground and watch them magically start producing something.

[Ban Hammer 13,470]

Supply and demand. Poor people are consumers. Ask the company who makes Pampers, where most of their money comes from. Manual labor is as much a commodity as is money. You can't separate those two. You can't throw dollars on the ground and watch them magically start producing something.

poor people have money to be a consumer?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

poor people have money to be a consumer?

Every living, breathing human being has basic needs - food, clothing, shelter, and the working poor spend a significant amount of their income on such basic necessities. Walmart wouldn't exist today without the purchasing power of millions of poor people who shop there, and Walmart is the largest retailer in the world.

Is a rich man's dollar spent at Walmart worth any more than a poor man's? And in terms of sheer numbers, there are more poor people spending their money at places like Walmart than rich people.

[^_^ 5,021]

I was at our local Wal Mart yesterday, first time in ages! They've really cleaned it up, it used to look really ghetto when I stopped going but now it looks nice again.

But the customers still look pretty ghetto

[Ban Hammer 13,470]

Every living, breathing human being has basic needs - food, clothing, shelter, and the working poor spend a significant amount of their income on such basic necessities. Walmart wouldn't exist today without the purchasing power of millions of poor people who shop there, and Walmart is the largest retailer in the world.

Is a rich man's dollar spent at Walmart worth any more than a poor man's? And in terms of sheer numbers, there are more poor people spending their money at places like Walmart than rich people.

so now you support the existence of wal-mart.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

so now you support the existence of wal-mart.

Nice deflection. The argument mawilson made is that the rich alone create jobs and then some of you giggled like school girls over the idea that poor people could ever create jobs. I pointed out how they create jobs. If you'd like to refute that, go ahead.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Nice deflection. The argument mawilson made is that the rich alone create jobs and then some of you giggled like school girls over the idea that poor people could ever create jobs. I pointed out how they create jobs. If you'd like to refute that, go ahead.

But you didn't tell us how poor people create jobs. All you did was state that poor people consume. This is true but it still doesn't tell us how poor people write paychecks to workers.

The Real Jobs Machine

By Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON -- If you're interested in job creation -- and who isn't these days? -- you should talk to someone like Morris Panner. In 1999, Panner and a few others started a small Boston software company called OpenAir. By 2008, they sold it for $31 million. The firm had then grown to about 50 workers. It turns out that entrepreneurship (essentially: the founding of new companies) is crucial to job creation. But as Panner's experience suggests, success is often a slog.

What's frustrating and perplexing about the present unemployment is that the U.S. economy has long been a phenomenal jobs machine. Here's the record: 83 million jobs added from 1960 to 2007 with only six years of declines (1961, 1975, 1982, 1991, 2002 and 2003). Conventional analysis blames today's poor performance (jobs are 7.6 million below their pre-recession peak) on weak demand. Because people aren't buying, businesses aren't hiring. Though true, this omits the vital role of entrepreneurship.

In any given year, employment may reflect the ups and downs of the business cycle. But over longer periods, almost all job growth comes from new businesses. The reason: high death rates among existing firms. Even successful firms succumb to threats: new competition, products or technologies; mature markets; the death of founders and family feuds; shifting consumer tastes; poor management and unprofitability. A company founded today has an 80 percent chance of disappearing over the next quarter-century, reports a study by Dane Stangler and Paul Kedrosky of the Kauffman Foundation.

True, some blue-chip firms -- the Exxons and Procter & Gambles -- endure. Fourth-fifths of the "Fortune 500" were founded before 1970, note Stangler and Kedrosky. But they are exceptions, and many brand names have died: Pan Am (once the premier international airline), Digital Equipment (once the second-largest computer maker) and Circuit City (once a leading consumer electronics chain).

The debate over whether small or big firms create more jobs is misleading. The real distinction is between new and old.

American workers are roughly split between firms with less or more than 500 employees. In healthy times, older companies of all sizes do create lots of jobs. But they also lose jobs, as some businesses shrink or vanish. On balance, job creation and destruction cancel each other. All the net job increases occur among startups, finds a study of the 1992-2005 period by economists John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland and Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda of the Census Bureau. Because most startups are necessarily small, this gives a statistical edge to tinier firms in job creation. But, the study says, the effect entirely reflects the impact of new businesses.

To be sure, entrepreneurship has a downside: booms and busts. Remember the dot-com "bubble." But more damaging, says Panner, are widespread popular misconceptions about what entrepreneurship is and isn't.

Start with the Blockbuster Myth: Success involves creating huge enterprises a la Google that transform how we live. In reality, "most ventures don't change the world," says Panner. They're unknown companies providing highly specialized goods and services, plus restaurants, auto repair shops and many everyday businesses. There are more than 500,000 startups annually, report Haltiwanger, Jarmin and Miranda. The number must be large to make an impact on the 155-million-person labor force.

Second is the Inspiration Myth: Most startups spring from some epiphany suggesting a new product or technology. Wrong. Gee-wiz moments are few. Companies continually change plans. OpenAir ditched its original idea, which drew scant customers. "You can't do anything until you meet someone's needs," says Panner. Discovering what works is exhausting, frustrating and chancy. Failure rates are high; half of new firms die in five years.

And, finally, the Incentive Myth: It's necessary to keep tax rates low, so entrepreneurs can reap huge rewards for their time, sweat and money. Well, this may be true, but it misses a parallel truth: government disincentives to entrepreneurship. Panner, a registered Democrat, criticizes complex accounting, employment, and health care regulations imposed by federal and state agencies that consume scarce investment funds and time. The fragmented system of business oversight imposes a bureaucratic bias, perhaps unintended, on startups. Any one rule or tax may seem justifiable; but the collective effect can be crushing.

It's all about risk-taking. The good news is that the entrepreneurial instinct seems deeply ingrained in the nation's economic culture. Americans like to create; they're ambitious; many want to be "their own bosses"; many crave fame and fortune. (Panner is already involved with a new startup, TownFlier. It has five employees.) The bad news is that venture capital for startups is scarce and political leaders seem largely oblivious to burdensome government policies. This needs to be addressed. Entrepreneurship won't instantly cure America's jobs' deficit, but without it, there will be no strong recovery.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/10/04/the_real_jobs_machine_107410.html

[Ban Hammer 13,470]

Nice deflection. The argument mawilson made is that the rich alone create jobs and then some of you giggled like school girls over the idea that poor people could ever create jobs. I pointed out how they create jobs. If you'd like to refute that, go ahead.

steven, poor people don't create jobs - by the nature of them being poor, they don't have the pocketbook horsepower. by your reasoning above, i probably spend more at wal-mart in one visit i make every one to two months to easily equal the money spent by a minimum wage earner - yet you don't see me claiming i create jobs.

you've still yet to post a story (and link) of someone who is poor starting up a business and thus creating jobs, until then we'll continue to laugh at your logic.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

But you didn't tell us how poor people create jobs. All you did was state that poor people consume. This is true but it still doesn't tell us how poor people write paychecks to workers.

We are talking about the myth that rich people create jobs. Money or capital is needed to create jobs, but you can't just throw money on the ground and it will magically produce more capital. You need a consumer base, you need manual labor. Which is worth more, a million dollars from one person or a million dollars from a million people, if you are a company or a business? And if your business only takes in one dollar at a time, which would rather have for a customer base - one guy with a million dollars, or a million customers with one dollar each to spend on your product?

Edited October 4, 2010 by El Buscador

[mawilson 2,133]

Nice deflection. The argument mawilson made is that the rich alone create jobs and then some of you giggled like school girls over the idea that poor people could ever create jobs. I pointed out how they create jobs. If you'd like to refute that, go ahead.

Poor people are consumers, like everyone else. What you're forgetting is that

they consume the cheapest products they can afford and those tend to be made

in China. Giving them more money would certainly increase the demand for the

products they consume and thus indirectly create jobs... in China.

However, no-one has even mentioned giving more tax breaks or credits to the poor;

all I hear is tax, tax, tax the rich.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Poor people are consumers, like everyone else. What you're forgetting is that

they consume the cheapest products they can afford and those tend to be made

in China. Giving them more money would certainly increase the demand for the

products they consume and thus indirectly create jobs... in China.

However, no-one has even mentioned giving more tax breaks or credits to the poor;

all I hear is tax, tax, tax the rich.

Maybe you need your hearing examined by a professional. The issue over taxes has come up because the Bush Taxes as set to expire, bringing the tax rates back to what they were during the Clinton Administration. I'll take Clinton's economic track record over Bush's.

[mawilson 2,133]

Maybe you need your hearing examined by a professional. The issue over taxes has come up because the Bush Taxes as set to expire, bringing the tax rates back to what they were during the Clinton Administration. I'll take Clinton's economic track record over Bush's.

I don't think so. We're talking about keeping the status quo for the poor and

middle classes and possibly letting the tax breaks expire for the rich (whether

or not someone who makes $200,000 is "rich" is another story.)

That can't be good for jobs. The poor will not have any more disposable income

than they have today, and the "rich" will have less.

[Heracles 417]

We can no longer fix our financial problems simply by taxing the rich. The state

of New Jersey has been doing it for years and the chickens are coming home to roost.

If you think that NJ millionaires got a "tax break" during the Bush years, think again.

In 2004 (hardly a bad year!) NJ increased the income tax rate from 6.85% to 8.97%

for taxpayers with taxable income of $500,000 or greater. In 2009, Jon Corzine

increased it further (to 10.75%) for incomes above $1 million.

Enough is enough. It's time for the middle class to suck it up and accept a tax

increase for the greater good of the nation.

Actually, that is exactly what you can do and what every single other first world country is doing.

Corzine is a lawyer. Lawyers have FA experience in creating jobs, running a country, promoting economic growth etc etc etc. Ironically they are in an industry that does the exact opposite. They're in an industry that generates revenue using a means worse than tax, where one can just sue their way into wealth. Is that what you guys classify as economic growth?

Edited October 4, 2010 by Heracles

[anya-D 8]

wondering what you mean by 'poor' and how much money is consider poor?

We are problably not so poor but we are deffinately not rich but my husband has his own business and employ 2 full-time and 2 part-time and occational workers as well... it called - small business. Not every business is a multi million dollars business.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I don't think so. We're talking about keeping the status quo for the poor and

middle classes and possibly letting the tax breaks expire for the rich (whether

or not someone who makes $200,000 is "rich" is another story.)

That can't be good for jobs. The poor will not have any more disposable income

than they have today, and the "rich" will have less.

That's the idea. The poor will quickly spend whatever money they have extra while the rich may have to hold off on that vacation to Malta.