NH Budget Will Slow Economic Recovery & Job Creation

What company (4.00 / 1)

would want to relocate or begin a new business in a state where contracts (like state employee retirement contracts) aren't worth the paper they're written on?  Today, in NH, state contracts are worthless.

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by: mevansnh @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 10:08:32 AM UTC

what company (4.00 / 1)

would want to relocate to a state that doesn't believe in educating the future generations?

That NH ranks in 70th place (out of 50 states) in state spending on post secondary education should be a source of great shame to our state.  

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by: susanthe @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 11:46:08 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Conservation of... (0.00 / 0)

When states cut spending, they lay off employees, cancel contracts with vendors, reduce payments to businesses and nonprofits that provide services, and cut benefit payments to individuals. All of these steps remove demand from the economy.

Demand isn't really something you can "remove" from the economy though. It seems like this analysis only considers first-order effects. Where instead is the chunk of money going that would have otherwise gone toward state spending?

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by: rossby @ Sat Jul 02, 2011 at 02:25:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Demand can be removed from the economy (4.00 / 1)

through hoarding or shifting from demand for goods to demand for cash/liquidity/dollars. This reduces the velocity of money and limits economic growth.  

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by: nhdemocrat @ Sun Jul 03, 2011 at 14:53:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Every one (0.00 / 0)

of the jobs lost by this sort of ideological "magic" reduces the economic activity in our communities.  Mortgages don't get paid, car payments don't get made, food, clothing and other goods don't get bought, never mind luxuries like dinner out once in a while, or a movie, or a special gift or a bunch of flowers.  How this grows the economy, why anyone would hire more workers or start a new business, I can't imagine.  Except to believe in the magic of tax cuts.  I outgrew that kind of thinking a long time ago.  

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by: Lucy Edwards @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 10:44:43 AM UTC

Conservatives are focused on keeping things as they are, or (0.00 / 0)

as they remember them being. They are not linear thinkers. Past, present and future are all one. I think it's like a person learning to "read" a clock, but having no real sense of time passing.  As a result, such a person literally can't think ahead and can't even recognized the relationship between a particular cause and its long-term effect. They can use the language, but it doesn't inform their behavior. "Being" is geared towards mere existence; "doing" involves not just action from one moment to another, but change that can be felt and observed.
When Republicans say "it's not change we can believe in," they're making a statement of fact.  What they believe is what exists; if they don't believe it, it doesn't exist. They don't believe in change, which eludes their grasp, so it doesn't exist. Moreover, it's not just that they can't believe in change; they don't even want to. What they want is for things to remain the same. That this sameness involves the exploitation of resources, including other people, is beside the point -- i.e. not their concern.
How does one argue with such thinking?  One doesn't.  There is no arguing with belief.  That's what faith-based government is about--no questions. People just do what they're told, or not. The Party of No.  How can you have a group (party) of people who do nothing?  Having another group do for them makes it possible.  Freeloaders would not survive, if there weren't people doing for them.  On the other hand, whom would we do for, if there were no freeloaders?  It's when freeloaders start giving orders that problems arise, 'cause they really don't know what they want.

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by: hannah @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 11:42:49 AM UTC

I think I'm repeating myself... (4.00 / 3)

Taxes pay for stuff. Stuff we all need/use. Like roads and schools and law enforcement...

My new mantra. Yes, I'm repeating myself.

JillSH

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by: JillSH @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 13:32:42 PM UTC

Well, if you consider the economy as being made up of producers (0.00 / 0)

and consumers, then it's clear that the factors or middlemen, who promote the distribution of goods and services, don't really show up as serving a distinct function.  Instead, under the heading of business, they're lumped in with industrial and agricultural producers/workers, even though they provide no added value, other than moving things and money around. When we do consider them as a separate entity (sitting at the nexus of production and consumption), then it becomes apparent that they are not the lone occupants of that spot.  Our agents of government are sitting there, as well, looking to collect a "contribution" for the services they are tasked (contrary to business volunteers) with providing and, on the whole, generally do.  In other words, merchants have good reason for seeing the agents of government as competition for the same pot of money. But, business is at a disadvantage, not just because nobody asked/tasked them to insert themselves in the distribution network, but also because they've done nothing in recent decades to earn the public trust. There's a reason 30% of new businesses go bankrupt -- the public rejects their offer to provide no service.

So, the argument, which business does not want to make explicit, is that if government agents weren't tapping revenue from the exchange of goods and services, then there would be more income for the factors to claim and their self-generated jobs might last longer.  That nobody really needs them is a hard pill to swallow.  And yet, that's the bottom line.  When producers can fill orders from customers directly via the internet, rapacious middlemen are not just useless, but easily expendable. Which is why we now have the Chamber of Commerce arguing for the collection of sales taxes on internet sales in hopes of reducing their growth. What they don't understand is that the reason internet sales are growing has little, if anything, to do with money.  Rather, it's a matter of people being able to save the only thing that's definitely limited -- their/our time.

When stores don't have what people are looking to buy, they're wasting our time. If I have to wait two weeks for a dryer to be ready for pick-up, I'd just as soon order one on line.  Even if I have to spend several hours going through the specs to find what suits my needs, that's better than interacting with a know-nothing salesman whose universe of products is limited to what he's got "on sale" on the floor -- whatever some sales manager decided the public is supposed to want and ordered too many of.

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by: hannah @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 14:06:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Succinctly put (4.00 / 1)

I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.

- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Only the left protects anyone's rights.

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by: RealNRH @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 17:44:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

These graphs from the NYT economics blog (0.00 / 0)

tell you everything you need to know about what the NHGOP did to NH's economic future by making it harder to get a degree:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes....

birch paper; on Twitter @deanbarker

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by: Dean Barker @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 13:40:15 PM UTC

If only the General Court hadn't monopolized... (0.00 / 0)

the authority to grant degrees in New Hampshire.

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by: rossby @ Sat Jul 02, 2011 at 02:34:39 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

There is one group (0.00 / 0)

that will have more work...lawyers who will be needed to fight the state legislature's abuse of power and lawyers that taxpayers are being forced to pay to defend those actions.

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by: mevansnh @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 15:52:47 PM UTC

Time to stop reporting the economy as a whole ! (0.00 / 0)

If the middle and bottom loses 40% and the top gains 42% the economy is said to have gained 2%.The recovery and wealth creation is doing just fine-----FOR THE TOP 10%-----THE GOP BASE

You say you are not in the top 10%----Gee---- S*&ks to be you !

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by: tchair @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 16:02:09 PM UTC

quibble over terms (0.00 / 0)

"NH Budget Will Slow Economic Recovery & Job Creation", the title of your diary, implies a reduction in growth rate or a reduction in the velocity if you will of the recovery. Rather than positing a reversal of fortune and the real decline of the economy, its says the Ferris wheel is getting near the top and is slowing...but we know for certain the next trough is coming,and the wheel doesn't stay at the top forever, and especially because our legislature just greased the skids...
Is that not what's really happening? Are we not witnessing the decline of our society ? (Amercian Exceptionalism be damned)

Now pay attention...when you flip a coin into the air, do you ever see it stop ? No because it essentially is going up or down, but it never stands still, right? The economy is like that...it doesn't slow from 60 to 30 and reset the cruise control like your Ford...it keeps going up or it keeps going down...until it hits its limit.

We have stopped rising. What will slow our eventual decline? I know it's not this clusterf*ck of a budget. It's a disaster, but it's not waiting to happen.

note to close readers: this might be sarcastic so think twice before reading to candidates for use in their attacks on each other

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by: JonnyBBad @ Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 18:23:17 PM UTC