From a reader:
I don’t know if you’re interested in this, but I feel like I’m actually ahead of the game here, so I have to share.
November unemployment numbers were terrible… the steepest in almost 35 years.
Of course they were! The Obama tax platform stressed significant tax advantages for companies who “create jobs”. What is the best way to “create a job”? How about destroying a job, going for a couple months short handed and then creating the job again when you can get a big tax break out of it?
Don’t believe me? That is exactly what influential entrepreneurs are recommending to one another as a matter of survival.
We are naturally going to see huge job shedding as a matter of business tightening until business are sure they will get money back from the government just for doing business.
You may not care, but I’m excited that I know what is going on.
Me: Just for the record, I have no idea how much of a factor the tax breaks for job creation are. Though I’m sure that the unemployment numbers would still be bad if John McCain had won. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t shock me if the reader is right that this is a contributing factor in some hiring and firing decisions, at least at the margins.