Saved by Zero

I grow weary of all the formulations over the impossibly abstract concept of saved jobs. But I think I have come up with an analogy that puts it all into its proper perspective.

Imagine the economy is a boat.  And the governments economic policy affects how or who can plug holes or who or what makes more of them. 

The objective is to keep as much water out of the boat as possible.

Employment is then defined by the number of people who are available to bail out the water pouring in the holes, where wealth can determine how many cups there are or how big the cups are we use to bail with. Using this method we have a picture of the relationship (and relevance) between government economic policy and its affects on wealth creation and jobs creation (or savings) as it affects the overall reality we must face.

Some people will always be bailing.  Some will be doing nothing.  Others are making more holes.  And government policy (unfortunatley) continues to have a growing affect on how much we can do, and what the affects or benefits are to us for doing more or less bailing to keep the ship afloat.  But as long as there are more people bailing, and some reward for bailing, (and more cups available to do it), the economy can stay above water.

So you can choose to believe whatever you want about how many cups their are and who should be supplying them, or about how many jobs have been created or saved--the water is still rising and there are fewer and fewer people bailing.

Comments

[Rick Barnes]

Good analogy!

I'd add one more piece to it though. "Make work" jobs as we're seeing plenty of from the stimulus package. These are the equivalent of people scoop buckets of water from the boat making it look for a short time like the water is being cleared out but then they dump the wanted right back into the boat instead of over the edge.

[Steve Mac Donald]

Yeah, that's a good adendum. They are effectively standing around and getting paid by us to do it.