Businesses are afraid to invest, afraid to hire and afraid to expand. The ones that have survived have “downsized” to the point that they are profitable. Could they grow? Hire more people?
Perhaps. In some cases, absolutely.
But they don’t. Because they are afraid.
Between the EPA attacks, union attacks, and threats to soak anyone who manages to make money from the Obama Administration, it just isn’t worth taking a risk anymore. There is no return on that investment.
I have a friend in the furniture restoration business. He had, at one point, about 10 people working for him. As the economy started going down, there were fewer jobs coming in. One by one he shed employees until he is now on his own picking up a temporary worker every now and again when he gets a big job.
His company is making far less money than it was before Obama came into office. But one thing he has realized is that despite a much smaller operation, he is making more money now than he was before with far fewer headaches. With no employees to worry about, deal with and no payroll, he has more time to actually do the work, and he is pretty good at what he does. And he is turning business away. He has more than enough to keep himself busy and none of the administrative woes he had a while back.
How many other businesses are out there that have found the same formula?
If you can make a descent wage on your own and not have to deal with all the regulations, restrictions and hoops that the Obama Administration has imposed, why bother?
And now that ObamaCare has been ruled constitutional, is there any reason to hire that 51st employee that will subject you to health care regulations and mandates? Is there any reason to keep 60 employees? Can you trim down to 49 or so and keep your company from being subjected to the new expenses of the “Affordable” Health Care Law we call ObamaCare?
And with the Bush Tax Cuts set to expire, it actually makes more sense to downsize below the point where the government becomes your master.
Entrepreneurs will risk money when there is a reasonable chance to make money. They will sit it out when there is not. And these days, Obama is wont to punish success. The more success, the greater the punishment.
What businessman in their right mind would play into that?
The rich don’t get rich making bad bets. There are ways around the Obama Administrations new rules to “level” the playing field. Unfortunately, the work around does not involve adding workers. Quite the opposite. It involves getting your company down to a point just below federal intrusion.
On paper, forcing companies to provide a government approved health insurance plan if they have more than 50 employees will give insurance to a lot of people. In reality, the company will simply get rid of excess employees and do whatever they want to do.
And jobs will be lost. And the obvious reaction from Obama will be to lower the threshold below 50. But the result will be the same. More jobs shed with fewer companies wanting to go above the magic number, wherever they set it.
Today’s jobs numbers were abysmal. They show a stagnant economy after nearly 4 years of Obama’s magic touch. And now that the ObamaCare ruling is in, the companies that were hoping to be left alone to conduct business as they see fit will now adjust to the new reality. Perhaps ObamaCare will be repealed, but this is not going to happen anytime soon, if at all.
Are companies going to begin hiring, knowing that the government will now be adding more and more demands on their finances? Hardly.
Progressivism has failed. It is obvious to everyone but the Progressives. Businesses have seen enough. Jobs will be be lost and the number of unemployed will climb. The bad numbers – only 80,000 jobs created – are only the beginning. We need about 3 times that to keep even with the growing population. While Obama will add this 80,000 to the number of jobs “created” to his tally, the fact that we ran a jobs deficit of 160,000 for June will not be included in his calculations.
Just like he is doing with the economy – running huge deficits – so is he doing with his policies and their effect on jobs. We are not “creating” jobs, we are going in reverse.
The economy is still not working and neither is Obama.
Article written by: Tom White
