who really needs a job anyway?

With somewhere near 14 million people out of work, who needs a job anyway sounds like a dumb question huh? Well maybe it sounds dumb but it's really a question worth thinking about. In an advanced society with the GDP of the United States, what real economic drivers exist to create the jobs necessary to lower the unemployment rate to say something like 5%? Well, first and foremost, if I said it once, I said it a million times; no economic driver means no new jobs. Second, the private sector is the largest producer of jobs yet not many jobs are springing up from the private sector (perhaps due to no economic driver maybe?) which can likely be attributed to a lack of motivation to be innovative. Why take a leap into the unknown to be innovative if you are productive with the people you have and making a pretty decent profit doing so? Simply put employers are productive and unmotivated to take on new business initiatives. This is contrary to the trending side talk that it is in fact a lack of access to capital, low interest rate loans and so on. Sure, those factors are important to small businesses that employ less than 25 people but otherwise there simply is not any motivation for companies to hire.

So how do you motivate companies to hire? Well for starters, maybe it is a good idea to start thinking about whether or not it is a good idea to reward companies for moving jobs and cash overseas after they have amassed wealth in the United States. Come on really now, how many native Chinese, Japanese or Russian companies move a large percentage of their presence to the United States while leaving their native country hanging? It just does not happen but the US allows companies to do just that. This is the ugly side of capitalism that no one wants to discuss. Now assuming that wasn't the case, perhaps it's a good idea to transform the culture of the US such that everyday citizens believe in and become a part of the growth of the Country instead of simply expecting that it's someone else's responsibility to provide jobs to spend and live in blissful ignorance. Lastly, this idea that 5% unemployment is the benchmark that determines if the economy is doing well is in a word - outdated. Wake up folks 5% unemployment is a thing of the past. Move on. With technology and increased efficiency there simply is less and less need to create jobs to make the same if not better profit margins. So maybe, just maybe who needs a job anyway isn't such a dumb question after all.