Where the GOP goes from here

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Not necessarily. What if human workers can be dumped and replaced by robots?

A business exists to make a profit, not to hire people. Human labor is a means to an end, which is to produce profits for the firm.

ruveyn

BTW, I was being sarcastic with my post.

Creating jobs is not the purpose of a business. The purpose is to sell as many goods as possible for the maximum profit possible. Sales and earnings are what the shareholders are looking for when they buy stock. The CEO's job is to please the shareholders. Sometimes hiring will increase earnings and sales. Other times it will only incur cost. It totally depends on the overall economic climate, which in turn depends on consumer spending habits. When consumers lack disposable income, are too busy paying off debt, or decide to save instead of consume, the climate isn't good for business. Paradoxically consumers being wise and thrifty hurts business. If the majority of people were carbon copies of me the economy would be in the shitter, unemployment 50%. Why? I don't buy useless crap I don't really need just because some obnoxious jingle on the television set is telling me to. It's all pretty absurd really.

In other words, hiring occurs solely at the whim and pleasure of those who own and run the business -- theirs is employment to give, and theirs is employment to take away.

I think the biggest problem we have unfortunately is a cultural one - ie. people will house-break themselves (buy big brick edifaces with a Lexus in the driveway and little or no furniture) and they'll do it for the sake of validating their right to be alive. Our habit of social Darwinism via financial status propels us into staggering irresponsibility, even moreso when kids think they'll have a house twice the size of their parents for no other reason than a perception that they're better and hipper than their folks. Everyone and a new spouse wants to go in over their head on a house, someone loses a job or the ARM finally comes due, and they end up in divorce, foreclosure, perhaps both. I look at the houses in Parma near the mall (slightly more inner ring Cleveland suburb) and see the little brick ranches, 3 bed 2 bath, small yard, built circa 1945 and 1950 that go for little over $100k in our area (cheap real estate in the midwest) and I'm wondering when the developers will start actually building developments filled with those kinds of houses again - the days of Big Mac mass production of 2 floor and a basement 6 bed 4 bath, 3000 sq ft wannabe mansions and having a line of people with finances to buy is likely behind us and technically in all reality I don't think it ever truly existed; it was a fabrication that we're riding not only on debt but in the real-estate bubble that popped five years ago.

As for conservatives wanting to remove all regulation - I think that also is a pretty heavy misnomer; ie. no regulation = absolute collapse of capitalism, which is the last thing conservatives want. If we want to talk about common conservatives rather than beltway conservates who very well have three or four lobbyists in each ear at any given moment you have people who generally would like to see the most simplistic but steadfast regulations possible; regulations that are incredibly clear, incredibly coherent, and regulations that aren't enacted/repealed constantly on the basis of either politics or social policy.

Don't peddle that horses**t at me. I worked in a union shop, I know how those a**holes operate. They couldn't give two s**ts less about the people they represent. They make wages outrageously high because they have a legal mandate they bought with kickbacks to take a percentage of dues without employee say. If push comes to shove in a union shop, low wage earners are the first on the chopping block to keep the higher wage earners safe. It's like f*****g human sacrifice in a monetary sense. And don't get me started on how unions employ mafiosi style tactics against their own members to force them to do what the union wants.

Only if there is something (or better yet, somthings) to replace it.

While I only support one of the parties that is represented in my country's Parliament, I give thanks that they are all represented there. The Opposition must exist, in order to hold the Government to account. There must be a real and viable choice before voters. And every so often, the reins of government must change hands.

Thank you ruveyn. That is essentially my argument in a nutshell.

If the objective is to create jobs purely for the sake of creating jobs, to keep people otherwise occupied and off the streets: this is something that the government can do.

Jobs require money. The government doesn't produce money (or wealth), it merely reallocates it. Any job the government "creates" is only by removing the ability for a business to create a job.

What if they don't want to work in the public sector?

What if they don't want to accept the only jobs that are offered to them?

If they are able to work and will not except employment (even employment of last resort) then they should be permitted to starve.

Those that do not work (but are able to work) neither shall they eat.

For the disabled there should be assistance both private and public. Victims of ill fortune (rather than of their own laziness or perversity) should be supported. Why? Because misfortune can happen to any of us. A certain degree of social solidarity is the best insurance policy against unsought misfortune.

ruveyn

The government produces quite a lot of public wealth. National Highway System, anyone?

The National Highway System actually enhanced the ability of businesses to create jobs. Where would the trucking business be without it?

Funded by taxes collected by force and bonds that can only be repaid by taxing citizens and firms at gunpoint. The national highway system was front-end capitalized by loot.

ruveyn

That is absolutely correct. But, it still facilitated job creation by private firms. And, it is still public wealth.