LET’S PLAY STORE

LET’S PLAY STORE: Our bent toward local issues and politics is, in part, derivative of years of thumping head-to-wall regarding concerns over which we ultimately have no say or sway.

But one little matter that’s been sticking in our craw every time it’s thrown out of the spin cycle of the “Bush tax cuts for millionaires” debate is the Republican claim that, since many of those fat cats who will continue to receive the tax cut are business owners, if they have more money they will create jobs.

This has to be the most moronic thing we’ve heard out of Washington pols in a long, long time... and that’s saying a lot.

Where exactly are these business owners who think “oh, look- I have all this money I made and so I’m going to spend it to hire someone I otherwise don’t need?”

We’re not god’s gift to entrepreneurship but we do understand enough to know that you hire people for one reason and one reason alone- that there is more demand for your product than you can currently supply.

If you’re happily making your widgets and find that people like your widgets so much that they are ordering twice as many as you alone can produce, you’d figure out how much you would make if you fill those orders. Then you then figure out how much it would cost to hire someone to stand next to you and help you make widgets.

Then, if the cost to hire your employee is less than the amount above and beyond what you alone make, you hire someone. Otherwise, you don’t.

And, unless you’re a total imbecile- or your wife is badgering you to take your good-for-nothing brother-in-law on as a partner- you don’t just hire someone because you’re making too much profit.

Because that’s what that “tax cut money” is- it’s your profit that you already made, on which you paid income tax.

It’s sitting there in the back and has no bearing whatsoever on whether you would hire someone.

The same goes for triple the widgets or a thousand times more widgets. You hire people to supply the demand for your product or service- not because you have “extra” money sitting around.

Where are these business people who go out and hire more employees simply because they are making too much money?

The answer is that there aren’t any because they all went out of business because they obviously had no business being in business in the first place.

If you’re really a good old capitalist pig and you’re making more money with less employees than you would by hiring people you wouldn’t hire anyone no matter how much you are making. As a matter of fact, if you could make more money by firing people you’d do that.

There, America. Done. Problem solved. Your welcome. We now return you to your regular assortment of local idiots and crooks, which is already in progress.