(the republican meme is that)by even considering raising taxes on "the 1%," we are considering destroying the very mechanism that makes our economy the strongest and biggest in the world: The incentive for entrepreneurs nd investors to build companies in the hope of getting rich and, in the process, creating millions of jobs.
Now, there have long been many problems with this argument starting with
1.Taxes on rich people (capital gains and income) are, relative to history, low, so raising them would only begin to bring them back in line with prior prosperous periods, and
2.Dozens of rich entrepreneurs have already gone on record confirming that a modest hike in capital gains and income taxes would not have the slightest impact on their desire to create companies and jobs, given that tax rates are historically low.
So this argument, which many people regard as fact, is already flawed.
But now a super-rich and super-successful American has explained the most important reason the theory is absurd, while calling for higher taxes on himself and people like him.
The most important reason the theory that "rich people create the jobs" is absurd, argues Nick Hanauer, the founder of online advertising company aQuantive, which Microsoft bought for $6.4 billion, is that rich people do not create jobs, even if they found and build companies that eventually employ thousands of people.
What creates the jobs, Hanauer astutely observes, is a healthy economic ecosystem surrounding the company, which starts with the company's customers.
The company's customers buy the company's products, which, in turn, creates the need for the employees to produce, sell, and service those products. If those customers go broke, the demand for the company's products will collapse. And the jobs will disappear, regardless of what the entrepreneur does.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-do-not-create-jobs-2011-12
Now, there have long been many problems with this argument starting with
1.Taxes on rich people (capital gains and income) are, relative to history, low, so raising them would only begin to bring them back in line with prior prosperous periods, and
2.Dozens of rich entrepreneurs have already gone on record confirming that a modest hike in capital gains and income taxes would not have the slightest impact on their desire to create companies and jobs, given that tax rates are historically low.
So this argument, which many people regard as fact, is already flawed.
But now a super-rich and super-successful American has explained the most important reason the theory is absurd, while calling for higher taxes on himself and people like him.
The most important reason the theory that "rich people create the jobs" is absurd, argues Nick Hanauer, the founder of online advertising company aQuantive, which Microsoft bought for $6.4 billion, is that rich people do not create jobs, even if they found and build companies that eventually employ thousands of people.
What creates the jobs, Hanauer astutely observes, is a healthy economic ecosystem surrounding the company, which starts with the company's customers.
The company's customers buy the company's products, which, in turn, creates the need for the employees to produce, sell, and service those products. If those customers go broke, the demand for the company's products will collapse. And the jobs will disappear, regardless of what the entrepreneur does.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-do-not-create-jobs-2011-12