Nathaniel

Shockey

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December 3, 2008

Good Places Not to Get Your Job-Creation Money

Americans have been promised a lot of change, which is nice, I think. But some things don’t change.

Let’s talk about job creation. A good way to create jobs is to come up with a really good idea, like a bread slicer, for example. Before sliced bread was common, I bet bread slicers were in high demand. Whoever came up with the idea probably had to hire a few people in order to have enough supply to meet the demand. He probably made sure he paid them enough to keep them around. He probably also calculated how much each slicer cost him to build and get in the hands of customers. These costs are often referred to as overhead.

This brings up the matter of funding. Maybe he needed some money to get the operation going, or to spread the word about his awesome machine. There are several ways to come up with funding, or what some businesspeople might refer to as startup capital. First, you can always try the ancient, once-common tradition of saving. Another way is to tell people who have money about your good idea, and if they are convinced it will be profitable, they may just lend you some of theirs. Or you can ask a bank for a loan, which you may receive if you have a history of being trustworthy with money. These are some good ways to get money, and this is the best way to create jobs.

If someone talks about creating jobs, be sure of a few things. First, and most importantly, closely examine where he is getting his startup capital. Just in case your idea is a bad one, make sure your funding source is one that will exit the scene as quickly as your idea. If this person happens to be a government official, there’s a very good chance that the pockets he is dipping into are yours. There’s also a good chance that he’ll continue scrounging through your pockets for loose change long after a bad idea has been revealed for what it is. If you like being tickled around the upper thigh, OK. But for some of us, it feels violating.

Second, make sure the jobs are coming from good, honest ideas. For example, let’s say you have a good friend, a cousin perhaps, who builds and fixes driveways. If business were lousy (or if there’s too little demand), he may become so desperate that he asks you to get up in the middle of the night while everyone is sleeping and take a jackhammer to as many driveways as possible in a five-mile radius of his shop. All of a sudden, his business is booming and he has to hire more people. Congratulations. You’ve created jobs. You’ve also lost a lot of sleep, pissed off a bunch of people, ruined a lot of perfectly good asphalt and could very well end up in jail if you’re not careful.

If someone breaks a window, he created a job for a window fixer. But he also broke a window, which is a rather stupid thing to do intentionally. If you pay someone to watch your television all day, then voila! You’ve just created a job.

If you had known creating jobs was this easy, I’ll bet you would have run for office yourself.

Or perhaps you grasp the difference between creating jobs and creating wealth.

GM did a terrific job of creating high-paying jobs. But they had a little problem with the aforementioned overhead. I don’t think they had heard of this until they realized that they had promised their employees so much money that they ran out of it themselves, and then realized they needed more startup capital, which is strange because they have been around way too long to be asking for more startup capital.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a good example of how to drive your business into the ground, despite trying desperately to create jobs, see the GM model. After all, you won’t be seeing new GM vehicles on the streets for much longer.

And if you’re looking for a great example of how to ignore the correct way to create and maintain jobs, let’s see if our government agrees to grant GM’s request for another $25 billion. That would be perfect, especially if you’re someone who likes getting tickled on your upper thigh.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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