President Romney a Job-Cutter? I Like It!

So, they say, Mitt Romney laid off workers while at Bain Capital, and this is supposed to be a bad thing. Why exactly is that a negative for the candidate?  By the way, many of these charges, especially some of the more extreme campaign ads, are actually untrue, but I'm not making that point here. 

Yes, I know we have high unemployment. The logic then, I guess, is that it's always wrong to cut jobs, right? What nonsense!  Nobody wants to lose their job, but sometimes it simply becomes necessary.

No one, except possibly the government, hires people simply to give them jobs. Jobs are not the goal of job creators. Profit is the goal. Employers hire people to do things in order to make money. These workers make things, provide services, or manage others who make or serve. The employer's challenge is to have enough workers to get the work done well so that clients and customers spend money for the products or services provided, in the end leaving a net gain in funds. Of course, the workers gain, too, and better workers generally gain more. A successful businessman prefers a good worker and will pay him accordingly, or he will lose that good worker to another employer who will pay him better. Just as with prices, the market place determines the value of workers the same as it determines the value of goods and services, unless the government mucks it up! Unions may provide a safeguard against poor businessmen, but they can also muck things up by demanding too much: excessive greed is no less harmful whether it's union greed or an owner's greed.

What happens when a business loses money, when there is a net loss? Effective employers adjust their production process to reduce costs or increase income. If they are able, they may improve a product to gain a better price or increase advertising to gain a bigger share of the market. If such adjustments do not lead to a net gain before invested resources are used up, then the business fails. An outside expert such as a consultant or a Bain Capital may be asked to accomplish what the entrepreneur could not. One part of a successful consultancy might be reducing the work force.

I had at least two friends who started businesses. Both failed because they were not able to find the mix of overhead and income needed to make a profit. Both closed their businesses, and were left with debts from spending more than their original investment. I don't believe greed was the motivation in either case, as is often the charge against capitalism. One was a young man who just wanted to work for himself and started his own pizza shop; the other, a grandmother already well-supported by her husband, hoped to use the profits from her bakery to support missionaries.

I've worked at two small private schools. One tried to solve its crisis without outside help and closed. The other, after a number of years of struggling, a consultant was hired to bring matters into balance. He advised the teaching staff that his first goal would be to increase enrollment and reduce expenses where possible, but he warned that too many teachers for the number of students would not be viable. If enrollment and thereby income could not be increased, then the number of teachers would have to be reduced. That turned out to be necessary, and the school was restored to solvency, though economic circumstances make solvency an ongoing problem for any business.

I worked for a computer company after finishing college. A new CEO was hired who determined that the best way to generate higher profits was to fire people. I did not believe his judgment was correct; I felt he could have taken a more growth-oriented approach. In his case, I had reason to believe his aim was to pull back, and I was not impressed by his corporate leadership. In other words, it is possible to cut so deeply into the workforce that the ability to produce is critically damaged, too. Of course, as one of those who lost his job, my opinion is hardly objective.

Recently I've driven a cab, several 12-hours day shifts, usually with one or two other drivers. If too many drivers are working, then none of us makes very much; too few drivers, and customers have to find another ride. Good and bad effects are evident; no manager has to figure it out. Unfortunately, in most businesses, the realities are not so evident to the workers directly. Since workers deal directly with customers, we also have a vested interest in a good company reputation. Bad-mouthing the hand that feeds you is obviously harmful; in many case, however, workers routinely complain about their employer without recognizing the harm they do themselves—fewer customers, lower consumption, less income, and fewer workers needed.

Nowhere have I seen a private businessman attempt to preserve jobs just to keep people working, even though some conscientious business owners come close; even they recognize that their business must succeed if their workers are to keep their jobs. One of the most effective approaches I've have seen makes workers more a part of the effort to make the business profitable, using incentives. That makes far more sense to me than the approach that demands more and more salary and benefits without regard to the limits I mentioned above. Too much overhead in worker costs will kill a business, and then the workers end up with nothing!

All that leads to my opinion that Romney's record in business is commendable. He is well known for going the extra mile to help people, often out of his own pocket. He may have reduced employment to turn a company around, but in doing so he saved the jobs of the remaining workers. Now, while our government doesn't make a profit, it does need to break even; and, frankly, I would love to see a leader who reduced the work force substantially, as that is a significant way to reduce deficit spending. We also need to reduce entitlement handouts. More private sector hiring will make some handouts less necessary, and I believe more hiring will occur when government deals with its excessive spending habits and unsustainable debt.

I'm sick of hearing that Republicans, conservatives, or any others not Democrats, want to cut taxes for the rich, as if it's nothing but a plan to put more money in pockets that are already filled with cash (By the way, it is long past time to stop calling the GOP the party of the rich; the Democrats have at least as many rich supporters and contributors, and there are more wealthy Democrats in Congress than wealthy Republicans!). Cutting taxes leaves more of what people earn in their own hands rather than the government's, with the added benefit that much of that wealth will be invested in businesses that create jobs. The government creates government jobs that must by paid by tax revenues, which are not sustainable.

I am amazed at the naivety of those who, with greedy expectations, trust people, who do not know them or say more than hypocritical caring words, to provide for them. Politicians will say anything to get votes, but they frequently do not do what they've promised. Creating resentment directed at those who are wealthy is clever but dubious. Rich people, as a group, are no more or less universally evil than any other group. Those who have experienced prejudice ought to be the first to recognize its evil; yet, I hear leaders from any number of supposed disadvantaged communities who have experienced discrimination readily speak words of discrimination against other groups.

I grew up during the Cold War when the United States sought to prevent world domination by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which was also the driving force behind Communist subversion. I remember when the USSR began to permit a measure of private enterprise because production in that “workers' paradise” was abysmal. Workers who do not profit directly from their efforts cease to be good workers. More recently, China has discovered the same lesson, permitting farmers to be able to dispose of a certain amount of their own produce.

Sadly, much of the current rhetoric about jobs including the attacks on Romney have much in common with Marxist ideology. Jobs aren't a right. Labor without an incentive to be productive will be poor labor. Many of us have heard the stories of union-protected workers who keep their jobs despite doing them poorly (Poor and abusive teachers in New York get assigned to special classrooms because it is nearly impossible to dismiss them).

The Obama re-election machine, with the full support of the main stream media, has done a remarkable job of promoting a caricature of Mitt Romney. I find it especially ironic that he's disparaged for being wealthy; the Democrat's Presidential icon FDR was wealthy, as have been many other Presidents. Romney didn't inherit his current wealth; he gave his inheritance away in order to be his own man and lived humbly at the beginning. Can't understand ordinary folks, they say, but it isn't true. He began his family life modestly; he and his bride didn't have a mansion, just a small apartment. He's accused of shipping jobs to China, while the current administration does far worse by encumbering the nation with huge debt obligations to China. I don't see the Presidency as a cult of personality, and I rather appreciate a candidate who isn't cool like many perceive Obama to be. Some charges are almost laughable, like Romney has no foreign affairs experience (say, compared to the junior Senator from Illinois when he was running?).

However, the Bain Capital charges are especially ridiculous, implying that somehow Romney enriched himself by closing companies and cutting jobs. People who buy into that propaganda obviously don't understand much about how successful employers make money. It isn't by destroying business! Yet, to make a struggling business viable, it may be necessary to make tough decisions. Right now, we have a government that refuses to make hard decisions, even with our financial viability hovering on the brink. Much more than jobs are at stake. We need a President who can make tough decisions, one who knows how to hold on to money and not just spend it, and who has experience bringing organizations out of the red back into the black. While I am not without reservations about Mitt Romney, he certainly seems to meet these important qualifications, better than the current President or much of Congress, for that matter.

I'm posting this the day after the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. Romney was not my first choice for the Republican candidate, and I admit to having had reservations. However, the more I see of the man, the more I like him. I believe him to be a remarkably decent and honest man.

I am appalled at the biased treatment the media gives the two men, fawning over Obama and ignoring any problems there may be in his past, while serving as mouthpieces for the Obama talking points regarding Romney. If there might be a more virtuous or more qualified person to be President, why would such a man want to risk the destructiveness of such skewed treatment?

One of my friends challenged my defense of Romney by suggesting I was jealous of his wealth. I thought that was the weirdest twist. I've never sought to be rich, though I've imagined it a bit when my resources were running low. However, I suspect the envy is indeed the reason that Obama has been so effective at stirring up that particular area of resentment.

Modern life has created an entirely new kind of idolatry—celebrity. In this realm, people admire or despise from afar, when in reality they don't really know the objects of their feelings at all. I can enjoy a gifted musician, a talented actor, or an accomplished writer, but the person may be either a saint or a rogue, often unknown to most. Success in one area does not insure wisdom in others, so I care little of the political opinions of Hollywood celebrities. On the other hand, I refuse to reject someone for their success out of envy or resentment, and certainly not based on rumor, suspicion, or innuendo. I'm not impressed when someone virtually unknown is hyped as a virtual savior, as Obama was; I'm not quite gullible enough to buy negative campaign rhetoric such as the crusade of character assassination waged against Romney. My point here is that you shouldn't either!