Feed: “Share Your Profits” And “Sue Your Boss” Are Not Job - AggScore: 12.7

“Share Your Profits” And “Sue Your Boss” Are Not Job Growth Strategies

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img classalignleft srchttpmedia.townhall.comTownhallReub20095C2255C20090813T182839Z01CJF07RTRIDSP0AFGHANISTANELECTION.jpg alt width225 height150 Think back a long time ago.Stretch your mind, and go all the way back to January 21st, 2011.On that day, the President of the United States spoke to an audience at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, NY and said, among other thingsemWere going back to Thomas Edisons principles Were going to build stuff and invent stuff..thunderous applause.emYes, President Barack Obama said that. And never mind that one of Thomas Edisons most profound inventions, the light bulb, is about to be outlawed by the Obama Administration. In a rather uncharacteristic moment of enthusiasm and support of forprofit American enterprise, the President made an appeal to American ingenuity and ambition and seemed to conclude that right now we need more of both.But fastforward a bit to last Monday, February 7th. Thats when the President addressed an audience of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce again and had a rather different attitude towards American success.Speaking of the improving balance sheets at many American companies, President Obama stated The benefits cant just translate into greater bonuses and profits for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that expanding trade and opening markets will lift their standards of living, as well as your bottom lineShare the profits in 2011 sounds eerily like spread the wealth around, circa 2008. In both cases, the President was speaking the language of economic collectivism socialism being the more loosely defined term of choice for this type of rhetoric and it should be disturbing to every American.Barack Obama is, of course, facing enormous pressure from the American electorate over the high unemployment rate. After all hes done to try and fix the economy an 800 billion economic stimulus bill, the Making Home Affordable mortgage fix, a credit card reform law, and of course his landmark healthcare reform law unemployment still remains unacceptably high, even by his own assessment.The Presidents frustration with unemployment is understandable. But his contemptuous tone for American businesses is counterproductive, even for his own pursuits. Start hiring, or else is not the way to incentivize businesses to assume financial risks and liabilities and hiring new workers entails risks and liabilities. It doesnt incentivize anybody to build stuff and invent stuff either, yet President Obama seems not to understand this.But even if one does not try to see things from the business owners vantage point, consider how different the Presidents language is in this instance, from the common language of the marketplace. For the record, American workers generally dont just get some of the profits from their employer. Workers perform certain tasks for an employer, and in return workers receive a wage. Employers benefit from the labor of a worker, and in return pay the wage. And investors, those who freely choose to take risks with their money to allow a business to try and grow wealth with it, are paid a dividend if and when the company is profitable.Historically, Americans have celebrated the fact that in our economic system one can move up. If you work hard and produce for your employer, it is likely that you can garner opportunities to earn more either that or take your skills and talents to another place of business that can offer you a better deal.President Obama, however, seems to assume that those at the top of a business enterprise the managers, the executives, the owners have necessarily achieved their position of authority by unjust means and they need to be punished for their achievement. This, by the way, is very similar to the economic views of our Presidents father, Barack Hussein Obama Senior, who while working in the communist government of Kenya once proposed a 100 taxation rate for the richest in his country.But his share your profits and start hiring or else moment aside, just days before his speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce our President took the hostility towards business owners to an entirely new level. In what has been described as an unprecedented and controversial maneuver, the White House set up a program earlier this month with the U.S. Department of Labor and the American Bar Association, wherein workers who feel they have been treated wrongly by their employer can call a tollfree number, and get assistance from an attorney who will represent them against their employer on a contingency basis.Some people, including our President and Vice President, see this as a pathway to justice for middle class workers, yet to believe this one must assume that every complaint against an employer is legitimate. Interestingly, the Obama Administration does not appear prepared to offer this same kind of free legal help to business owners which again takes us back to the Presidents very hostile assumptions about business owners and leaders in the first place.Share your profits and sue your boss are not policies for economic growth. As long as this kind of hostility continues to emanate from the White House, the Presidents need for more hiring will likely go unfulfilled.