On the Failed Job Creation Front, Obama Has Completely Run Out of Ideas

Unemployment is the millstone around President Obama’s neck in the 2012 election campaign. Attentive voters understand he is offering excuses — a worse-than-expected economy, financial crises requiring longer recoveries, bad luck of tsunamis, droughts, and the Euro — not solutions. Obama cannot deliver solutions because a real jobs program contradicts his core principles, alienates his base, and infuriates his crony contributors. He can only promise more of the failed policies –stimulus and tinkering — of his first three and a half years
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Obama’s last foray into job creation was his American Jobs Act (AJA) submitted to Congress on September 12, 2011.  Labeled “Stimulus 2” by its critics, Obama’s shopworn list of remedies, promised to “put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans….without adding a dime to the deficit.” The AJA’s temporary tax credits to businesses that hire, extension of the payroll tax holiday, and more money for teachers and infrastructure stalled in both Houses and had to be taken up piecemeal.  The payroll tax holiday extension passed Congress. Small businesses decided his tax credits for hiring were not worth the trouble.

A deafening silence followed.  Obama’s vaunted Jobs Task Force has not met for more than a half year. Obama is out of ideas. He can only offer excuses, criticize those offering new solutions, and divert attention from the worst recovery in history with chatter about the rich not paying their fair share and his opponent’s tax returns.

One year ago, on the eve of the President’s jobs address, I wrote Why Obama Cannot Support a Real Jobs Program.  In this piece, I showed what a real jobs program looks like and how it largely would have increased jobs, to use Obama’s AJA message, “without adding a dime to the deficit.” Here is the substance of what I wrote then as advice to the President:

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What If the Rich Really Gave Back as Obama Wants?

President Obama tells us that the rich should give back to society. He even knows many wealthy people who want to give back more. (I guess they can’t until their taxes are raised). We learn from him that the rich owe their success not to business acumen and risk taking but to public roads, schools, the courts, food stamps, disability payments, workplace regulation, and other government services. We even owe the first rumblings of the internet to DARPA, unfortunately the research arm of the military-industrial complex. (Or was it Al Gore?).  Obama feels it is only fair that the rich return what the government gave them. What business could survive without access by public road? Fair is fair, after all.

What would happen if we, like France’s socialist state, taxed away seventy five percent of earnings above one and a quarter million and  high-net-worth business executives with  $2.5 million in salary, dividends and rental property pay a marginal rate of 90.5 percent. At such rates, our rich would really be giving back to government what it is due, and perhaps more.  Fair is fair.

With so much “going back,” there is little reason to go forward. The “rich” should just cash in their chips, stop building their businesses or starting new ones, pay their high taxes, and live off their wealth, unless that is taxed away too. After all, the government can “invest” their money in Solyndras,  Volts, and entitlement programs. As Obama claims, government investment has higher returns than private investment.

If Steve Jobs had paid his fair share back to society after he made his first ten million, Apple today would today be a relatively small company worth less than a billion and employing a thousand or so. It would not be the world’s largest company in market cap, it would not employ 60,400 people worldwide, and we would not have the IPads, IPhones, Apps, and other innovative Jobs products, which improve the quality of lives and raise living standards. Apple shareholders would not hold shares worth a half trillion dollars.



go to forbes.com

An Inconvenient Truth From the NYT on Hybrid and Electric Cars

The venerable New York Times has been a reliable cheer leader for electric and hybrid cars in its A “news” section. Its "Business Day" section is for readers who base business decisions on what they read. They don’t want to be bothered with political correctness – just the facts. Except for a slip here or there, there is little difference between the Times Business Day and Wall Street Journal business reporting. With its table “The Cost of Higher Fuel Economy,” the Times has blown the cover of the electric or hybrid car. They do not make economic sense even at much higher gas prices.

I see that Drudge has picked up this story. Now everyone will know the house of cards on which the Volt is built.

In its Payoff for Efficient Cars Takes Years (April 5), the Times publishes a table that shows that buying an electric or hybrid car makes little business sense as compared to buying the closest conventional model from the same manufacturer. For example, a buyer choosing between a Chevy Cruze Eco and a Volt requires 27 years to break even. The best buy appears to be  the Jetta TDI  (which sells for only $500 more than the conventional Jetta) and breaks even in a year.

It takes much too long for the fuel savings to pay for the higher sales prices – even at $5 or $6 gas. It would take $12.50 gas to make the Volt a decent buy even after the $7,500 government credit.

The Times article concludes that people buy Volts and Fiesta SFE’s because it makes them feel better and more civic minded. That is not a very solid foundation on which to build a market.

Why No One Is Buying Volts: Twenty Years to Earn Back the Fuel Saving

The Journal’s “Is Chevy’s Cruze Dulling the Spark of its Volt?” runs the numbers on the Volt and the similarly sized Chevy Cruze.  

The Volts sells for some $20,000 more than the Cruze. According to EPA estimates (which has the Volt running on gas for part of its usage), the Volt consumes $1,508 gallons per year, while the Cruze burns $1.779. If the Volt is used only for short distance travel, its electricity costs $648 per year.

Thus a typical driver who mixes long distance and city driving would need more than sixty years to earn back the fuel saving. A Volt owner who drives only short distances in the city would require twenty years.

Even if our gas prices rose to European levels, it still would not make economic sense to buy the Volt.

And does anyone wonder why GM sold only 603 Volts in January? Another loss for Obama’s industrial policy.

A Freudian Slip? “Volt: The Car America Had to Build”

I was struck by GM’s new ad: “Volt, the Car America Had to Build.”  These words are poorly chosen but revelatory of where things stand. The ad masters probably did not know what they were saying, but General Motors is now officially “Government Motors.” Yes, after Obama's bailout, GM indeed MUST produce the Volt. Its job is not to build the best and most competitive cars, nor to create value for its shareholders. Instead, GM’s task is to serve the interests of America (read: the Obama administration). 

And pundits wonder why such a large percentage of Americans stands in fear of Obama being reelected.