
Re: yesterday's "Why I'm not hiring" WSJ op-ed and why it was poop - jj_aa
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/08/wall-street-journal-editorial-page-outdoes-itself
======
bkmrkr
As a small business owner I can tell you we are putting of hiring for pretty
much the same reasons mentioned in WSJ. Basically you are paying double to
hire an employee.

~~~
Tichy
I don't understand that logic. Yes, if I buy an Apple for 1$, it costs double
than if an Apple would just cost 0.50$.

You are paying for employees what they cost, that is, what the market
determines. What are you doubling? (The taxes and whatnot are simply part of
the total cost).

~~~
CoryMathews
yes but if I only have 20$ I can get twice as many if they are $.50 instead of
$1. Thus he could hire more people if the overhead per hire was lower.

~~~
encoderer
The tax burden in this country is lower than European nations, lower than
Japan, lower than Canada.

The op-ed is a trite political attack piece (not out of character for the
WSJ). Your comments, well, they seem directed towards the half-brained. That
is, if you're smart, what your saying is obvious: Obviously Right if you're a
conservative, Obviously Wrong if you're a progressive.

If you're a true neutral centrist and you care most about lowering taxes, I
can point you in the direction of a gigantic defense budget that could be cut.

But in my experience, people who think Obama is an evil business killer also
think that we mustn't cut a cent from the defense budget.

Finally, saw something interesting yesterday.. apparently annualized corporate
profits hit 1.2 Trillion recently, the highest ever recorded.

Yes, socialist Obama is certainly proving himself the nemesis of prosperity
for America's business community. Clearly.

~~~
anamax
> The tax burden in this country is lower than European nations, lower than
> Japan, lower than Canada.

Actually, it's about the same in terms of dollars per person.

When I buy something, I don't ask "what fraction of my income?". I ask "What
value am I getting for my $."

Why should we treat govt any differently?

------
DanielBMarkham
I hate the fact that somebody can explain how arithmetic works, and folks will
trash them for political reasons. I hated watching the comments on HN when the
first article was posted, and I hate watching the reaction today.

~~~
zoomzoom
Honestly, everyone reading the WSJ knows how math works. The point of the
article was not to explain math - it was to blame "government" - and Barack
Obama - for the lack of private hiring. A political statement gets (and
deserves) a political response.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Let's assume that you are right -- he is making a blatant political point.

It's also true that these things add together. And I believe the reasons he
states to be a true indicator of why he's not hiring.

When somebody explains to you why they are not hiring -- and gives you the
numbers to back it up, arguing about his politics or opinions of your pet
causes is total idiocy. Who cares? Just assume that all those things on his
balance sheet are wonderful goodness from above. Assume he's a bigoted moron.
Whatever works for you.

Numbers still add together to make totals. And people make decisions (and form
opinions) based on those numbers. Arguing about his politics doesn't change
any of that. You can't argue yourself into a profit margin.

Next year there will be a new pet cause and a new item on the balance sheet.
Maybe these are all great things, maybe the inmates are running the asylum.
Probably a great discussion for somewhere else. None of that political stuff
is relevant here, no matter how strongly you feel about it. This is the cost
of doing business, and this is why he is not hiring. It would have been an
entirely different piece without the numbers, but the numbers are true
indicators of the nature of his business decision. Ignoring them or having a
snit about them is just so much noise.

~~~
jbooth
Did you read the linked article? The guy's business is in the tank. He
wouldn't be hiring if the government paid him to hire. Which they might,
actually, via tax credits under certain circumstances, I'm not too up on that
stuff.

The guy's numbers were ridiculous. The changes to his cash flow, year over
year, regarding employees, are dominated by healthcare costs. That's not a
government problem (although it arguably should be). To the extent that his
cash flow is affected by taxes, Obama cut them.

No wonder he can't run a business.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_sigh_

~~~
jbooth
You're saying that we should ignore his political affiliations and focus on
the numbers he presented.

I'm saying the numbers he presented don't add up to the point he was making
unless you add them up totally wrong -- and the point he's making is
manifestly political and has nothing to do with anyone's business reality.

------
hjkl
The original WSJ article struck me as disingenuous, but this article seems to
just go the ad hominem route.

~~~
ZachPruckowski
While ad hominem is usually bad, I don't see the problem with using it in
response to anecdotal evidence. If your argument is "I, personally, can't run
my business while paying employees an average wage!", then "your business was
spiraling downwards while before the downturn and well before healthcare
reform and wage bumps" seems to be a decent response.

Similarly, knowing someone's background is pretty crucial for an op-ed. If the
piece is being sold as "I'm a typical businessman, and Obama's policies are
keeping me from hiring people", then it's important to know if the businessman
in question is typical, or if he's politically connected.

Edit: Typo'd "solid" for "sold".

~~~
hjkl
It does seem unfair to have to respond to an inflammatory anecdotal op-ed with
a reasoned non-anecdotal argument, but I think that's the burden of a good
faith response.

In that respect, I think Michael Fleisher's background is a good indicator
that his piece has a bias, but pointing it out doesn't necessarily negate what
he wrote.

------
poet
Editorialized submission headline for a highly editorialized piece. Regardless
of the issues at hand, no thanks.

~~~
ytNumbers
Definitely the worst article to ever hit the #1 spot on HN. It looks like
yesterday's WSJ editorial must have hit a raw nerve with a lot of HNers, and
this makes them feel better. I'm okay with quality HN articles about politics.
It's just a shame that the top spot on HN is being reduced to this sort of
cheap partisan bickering. I hope HN does not become yet another
MotherJones/MSNBC or WSJ/FoxNews.

~~~
nkassis
that's what put me off Digg. But I fully understand that HN will have a bias
towards more libertarian views. I really don't think a site dedicated to
entrepreneurs and hackers will go the MotherJones/MSNBC way and Fox News
hardly has any article with substance online.

------
icarus_drowning
Garbage in, garbage out? The original piece wasn't particularly impressive
(rather than blame taxes for business problems, why not suggest targeted tax
cuts offset by targeted tax increases?), but this somehow manages to be worse.

The ostensible reason the op-ed was crap was that Micheal Fleisher is related
to someone who served in the Bush Administration. Now, while I agree that not
divulging that information was a mistake on the Journal's part, I hardly think
that shores up MJ's argument. It is necessarily fallacious-- his point is
wrong because he was wrong in the past, because he was associated with people
we don't like, and because his business is in trouble. It is certainly
possible that these things might be true, but they have little bearing on the
(equally bad) arguments in his op-ed, which are: taxes are slowing job
growth-- see, just look at my business!

MJ notes that the original article wasn't worth much comment. Why they decided
to then ignore their own conclusion and comment on it anyway is a mystery to
me.

The least they could have done was try to raise, rather than lower, the
already miserable tone of the debate.

~~~
jobu
I think Kevin Drum meant the article wasn't worth much comment, but the fact
that the WSJ chose to put it on the op-ed page was worth a few comments.

Why did the WSJ publish it? Perhaps it was a poor choice, perhaps it was a
slow news day, or perhaps it was a double-cross to destroy Michael Fleischer's
credibility with his own words.

~~~
icarus_drowning
But its the tone of that response that's the problem. Even if the fact that
the WSJ chose to publish it is worthy of comment, its certainly worthy of more
thoughtful comment. MJ looks as bad as the WSJ by responding to a clumsy op-ed
with such a petty, ad-hom piece.

------
CoryMathews
While I agree his business is doing lousy and thats a huge reason why he
cannot hire more, his point still rock solid.

The government takes way to much for each employee hired. 33%! The author
would realize this is a HUGE problem for employers, but I forget he is only a
political blogger.

Thus when you hire 3 and a tax rate of 33% + 33% + 33%, you are really paying
for 4 people and getting 3. That makes it hard to hire more employees.

Then comes the health care, which drives this 33% even higher. As the wsj
author states

"Every year, we negotiate a renewal to our health coverage. This year, our
provider demanded a 28% increase in premiums—for a lesser plan. This is in
part a tax increase that the federal government has co-opted insurance
providers to collect. We had never faced an increase anywhere near this large;
in each of the last two years, the increase was under 10%."

28% is a HUGE increase..

Don't turn this into a political "I must defend/attack obama/bush" article. He
stated everything with facts to defend why. 33% per employee and rising
quickly in just a years time is a huge reason not to hire someone new.

~~~
thetrumanshow
Wait for it.. someone is going to again point out that taxes in the US are
slightly lower than some other developed countries, and therefore they will
imply that since everyone's taxes are high, we should assume that high taxes
are perfectly sane.

~~~
run4yourlives
Sanity isn't the issue. The issue is that in no way do US taxes make you
uncompetitive, and therefore, as portion of the total cost of employee
retention the point is moot.

It's irrelevant if my apples are 50 cents or a dollar. What's relevant is what
everyone else is selling apples for.

------
wccrawford
"All his complaining about taxes and benefits is just a smokescreen for his
own incompetence."

Actually, I'd call that 'more proof that he's incompetent', personally. I read
that yesterday and shook my head at disbelief that a CEO could say such a
thing seriously.

------
krschultz
hn member toxicflavor basically made this point yesterday in about 10 words.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1587873>

------
russell
Well, well, well. A man who sucks at the government tit complains about taxes
that pay his bills. He's probably also getting stimulus money, but that's just
an unfounded jibe.

------
napierzaza
He'd much rather hire people who are non-union and paid in cash. Totally off
the books. How much more American can you be?

