Right-wing garbage debunked: No, regulation doesn’t kill jobs

[Crabtownboy]

So, regulation can actually help ... interesting.

It’s one of the oldest right-wing claims: “Excessive” regulation will harm job creators and kill the economy. But is it based on sound economics?

One new study, which examines this particular argument, finds it absurd on its face. Taylor Lincoln, who authored the report for Public Citizen, tells Salon the goal was to “point out hypocrisy and contradictions and the chasms between rhetoric and reality.” To that end, the report cites one Heritage Foundation study which asserted that a more efficient regulatory system could create 9.6 million jobs. The problem, as Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein noted: “there are only 7 million unemployed Americans.”

Heritage isn’t the only one making this argument. A Phoenix Foundation study claimed that, “a 5 percent reduction in the federal regulatory budget would yield 5.9 million new jobs over five years.” But the Public Citizen report points out that this leads to a ludicrous conclusion: “a 16 percent decrease (a figure the authors chose to parallel the amount by which they say federal spending had exceeded revenue since 2000) would result in the creation of 18.8 million new jobs over five years. In contrast, there are only about 11.3 million unemployed Americans.”

Dr. Thomas McGarity, a University of Texas professor who has studied regulation for decades, finds the right-wing argument wanting. As to whether cutting regulation could increase economic growth, he tells Salon, “it’s a silly argument. The impact of regulation, particularly in this era when it’s so darn hard to write a regulation, is nothing compared to what the Fed does each meeting.” His most recent book, Freedom to Harm, details how a decade-long assault on regulation threatens workers and the environment.

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/02/right_wing_garbage_debunked_no_regulation_doesnt_kill_jobs/

 

[preachinjesus]

Over regulation at the federal level has been a great boon for jobs...at the federal level.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Public Citizen and Salon?? Really???

Yeah, there's two really unbiased outlets dedicated to truthf ....

... oh, sorry! Shoulda known better than to try to say without choking on the irony!

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Didn't the zero hisself promise to regulate the coal industry right out of business ?

This opinion piece is preposterous.

 

[church mouse guy]

I guess that Cuba must be more prosperous than any of us realize since the El Comandante Castro controls one's every move down there.

 

[North Carolina Tentmaker]

So, regulation can actually help ... interesting.

Yea, right.

Well for starters they can’t get their numbers right. The first source, Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein claimed there were only 7 million unemployed Americans. The second source, the Phoenix Foundation, says there are 11.3 million unemployed Americans. So which is correct? Neither of course.

The US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics most up to date numbers (Nov 8, 2013) give a current unemployment in the United States of 11.3 million (matches the Phoenix Foundation number). But even the BLS admits that their 11.3 number does not include the 8.1 million Americans who are “involuntary part time workers” (because they can’t find full time work) or the 2.3 million “discouraged workers.” Those numbers bring the total to 21.7 million workers. That gives us an unemployment rate of 13.8%. This is what the BLS calls the U-6 rate, it is published by the BLS, but you have to go down to table A-15 on their report to find it.

But even that 21.7 million number is incorrect. The U-6 rate includes “discouraged workers” who the BLS defines as workers who have given up on looking for work over the last 4 weeks because there are no jobs. But since 1994, that only includes workers who gave up looking for work within the last 4 weeks. After 4 weeks of giving up, they are not counted at all. They were once counted as discouraged workers, but since 1994 the BLS has not tracked long term discouraged workers at all. The administrations (first Clinton, then Bush, now Obama) have all specifically excluded these long term unemployed from any published statistic.

If we could add in the long term discouraged workers, like we did before 1994, then estimates (World News Daily) are that the “real” unemployment rate would be 23.3% or about 36.7 million American workers. So when you see a report that states there are only 7-10 million unemployed Americans know that they are lying to you and the real number is more than three times that.

 

[InTheLight]

I had the misfortune to go ahead and actually read the entire article. What a sloppy, disjointed mess. Some lowlights:

One new study, which examines this particular argument, finds it absurd on its face. Taylor Lincoln, who authored the report for Public Citizen, tells Salon the goal was to “point out hypocrisy and contradictions and the chasms between rhetoric and reality.” To that end, the report cites one Heritage Foundation study which asserted that a more efficient regulatory system could create 9.6 million jobs. The problem, as Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein noted: “there are only 7 million unemployed Americans.”

Pointing out that a study said that 9.6 million jobs would be created while "there are only 7 million unemployed Americans" is not exactly a rebuttal of the study. The number of people available to fill the jobs need not be tied to the number of jobs that COULD be created. In fact the rebuttal piece in Public Citizen is riddled with logical flaws and asinine conclusions. Here's one:

Studies and predictions that have been put forth over the past four decades [emphasis mine] suggest that regulations on discrete matters such as fuel economy standards, toxic emissions, and workplace safety cost or threatened more than 55 million jobs. That is nearly five times the total number of Americans currently unemployed. [emphasis mine] which is about 11.3 million.

So studies done over 40 years have estimated that it cost our economy 55 million jobs and the Public Citizen points out there are only 11.3 million currently unemployed [BTW, they stated there were only 7 million unemployed in the previous paragraph.] This is a repeat of the previous fallacy that the number of jobs affected is related to the number of people available. But even worse, they completely neglect to factor in that the 55 million jobs affected occurred over FORTY YEARS.

Heritage isn’t the only one making this argument. A Phoenix Foundation study claimed that, “a 5 percent reduction in the federal regulatory budget would yield 5.9 million new jobs over five years.” But the Public Citizen report points out that this leads to a ludicrous conclusion: “a 16 percent decrease (a figure the authors chose to parallel the amount by which they say federal spending had exceeded revenue since 2000) would result in the creation of 18.8 million new jobs over five years. In contrast, there are only about 11.3 million unemployed Americans.”

Here they took the assertion by conservatives that a 5 percent reduction in regulations would yield 5.9 million new jobs and multiplied it by 3.2 and then laughed at the "fact" that this math would result in more jobs available than are people currently unemployed. So they made up a multiplication factor and then repeated the same old fallacy yet again. Ya know what? If I take the number of Democratic senators in Congress and multiply it by 3.2 that gives a number greater than the total number of senators in Congress!

Continuing on with more from the article, they bring up changes in the auto industry as examples to bolster their arguments.

The auto industry is a quintessential example. Today’s advertisements focus on fuel efficiency and safety, and we take air bags and seat belts for granted, but cars were once death traps. Customers didn’t know that cars could be safer and more fuel-efficient until the government began enforcing the regulations.

Yes, we would have never figured out that smaller, lighter cars use less gas until the government told us and forced us to buy them.

Consumers are naturally conservative and they are heavily influenced by advertising. George McGovern said that advertising can “brainwash the consumer” because “no one was ever born with the taste for huge automobiles.” Companies were stuck on producing slick fancy cars, not safe cars. Regulation upended the industry and entirely changed the way that customers and society viewed the car: not a luxury toy, but a utilitarian mode of transportation. This changed the way customers thought about safety and companies thought about advertising.

Ha ha ha ha!! The article asserts that the typical family of the 50's and 60's (read 3-4 children and one car) "were not born with the taste for huge automobiles" and up until government regulations consumers viewed cars as luxury toys, not a means to move around the country. Really?!! LOL!! And it took government regulation, not two gas crises to get people to buy into smaller fuel-efficient autos.

<wipes away tears from laughing>

 

[North Carolina Tentmaker]

Thanks for reading it for us ITL,

The saddest part to me is that this was written by a journalist who should have had some training in rhetoric and debate. This article actually passes as logical thinking to the liberal mind.

 

[Revmitchell]

The op has now been debunked. Methinks someone is highly emotional and over exasperated because their political savior is not doing well and the government programs are looking poorly.

 

[just-want-peace]

The op has now been debunked. Methinks someone is highly emotional and over exasperated because their political savior is not doing well and the government programs are looking poorly.

Methinks that that "someone" truly is getting desperate, judging by all the bovine excrement that flows continually from that "someone's" keyboard; apparently fully expecting us to swallow that swill "because" ------, well he said it, and the massah done tole him what to say - so there!!!!!!

That "someone" is a slow learner.:sleep::thumbs:

 

[Revmitchell]

Methinks that that "someone" truly is getting desperate, judging by all the bovine excrement that flows continually from that "someone's" keyboard; apparently fully expecting us to swallow that swill "because" ------, well he said it, and the massah done tole him what to say - so there!!!!!!

That "someone" is a slow learner.:sleep::thumbs:

That someone is a DNC operative following marching orders

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

The contention that job creation has not slowed despite increased regulations is a farce. First of all, the vast majority of so-called "job creation" over the last 18 months has been in the part-time employment sector, and very few of those in the industrial, manufacturing or corporate sector.

Secondly, we can see the regulations and the modest job growth, but we cannot see the jobs that were not created due to regulatory costs, because they are not there to see. This OP is essentially a straw man argument, and I'm sure Crabby knows that. But, as he is a DNC/White House blogger/talking point specialist on the Great Pretender's payroll, he hopes no one notices the lack of substance, both in his contentions and in his manufactured article -- manufactured so people like him could take to the Internet and exploit it's lies.

The argument has not been that regulations cause layoffs, but that they prevent new jobs from being created. Take the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Since Sarbox passed, the number of IPOs in the U.S. has fallen 80 percent according to researchers at the University of Florida. IPOs fund businesses to expand and hire. Fewer IPOs, all other things being equal, means fewer jobs created. When businesses must spend money to comply with new regulations, they have less money to spend on other things, including hiring.

Finally, these twerps like to argue that regulations actually drive innovation and are therefore good for the economy. Bogus nonsense.

Case in point: A year ago in Ohio, a coal plant shut down, costing the community 159 jobs. Thank you, Great Pretender and your idiotic effort to drive the coal industry out of business. Highly touted at the same time was the opening of a "clean" natural gas plant 70 miles north of the coal plant. New technology! New jobs!

Yeah. Twenty-five jobs, to be exact. A net loss of 134 jobs for the region. Great economy, there, Crabby. Nice try. Oh, heck, it wasn't even that. It was another collection of lies and spin that utterly fails. Time to again go to your bosses and tell them to forego paying your stipend for yesterday. You didn't earn it.

 

[North Carolina Tentmaker]

and I'm sure Crabby knows that. But, as he is a DNC/White House blogger/talking point specialist on the Great Pretender's payroll,

Crabby gets paid?

Hey, I can post too, help hook a brother up Crabby.

 

[Salty]

Case in point: A year ago in Ohio, a coal plant shut down, costing the community 159 jobs. ...
Yeah. Twenty-five jobs, to be exact. A net loss of 134 jobs for the region. Great economy, there, Crabby. Nice try. Oh, heck, it wasn't even that. It was another collection of lies and spin that utterly fails. ...

And lets not forget the trickle down jobs. - those 134 who lost a job - are not able to eat out, buy a new car, go out to the movies, ect...-which means another business will have less customers - and may have lay off a person or two - and then - the cycle just keeps repeating....

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

And lets not forget the trickle down jobs. - those 134 who lost a job - are not able to eat out, buy a new car, go out to the movies, ect...-which means another business will have less customers - and may have lay off a person or two - and then - the cycle just keeps repeating....

Exactly, Salty. It's like the mythical perpetual motion machine ... unfortunately, it generates no energy other than negative.