Massaging

Of all the heartless and sometimes downright nasty stuff forced on the US by the latest incarnation of the Republican party, perhaps the most insidious is their messaging. My recollection is that they have a really skilled guy who's great at picking out words and phrases that convey the desired message while imperceptibly bending or breaking the truth.

For some reason, the phrase that popped into my head today was "job-creators," beloved of Romney in 2012. This is a code word for rich people and was used to argue against raising taxes on people making obscene amounts of money to help fund a fully functioning government. I've spent enough time in my life around rich people and, in fact, creating jobs, to know that this is pure spin.

I ran a small ad agency that "created" a peak of 17 jobs and over the 10 years I did it, about 10 on average. Did I do it because I was rich? Because I had some extra money to spend so I decided to create jobs? Of course not, that even sounds stupid. I created jobs because I worked for a company that needed a particular functionality and it was my task to create that functionality. Didn't cost me a cent; cost the company some out of pocket but saved it back in other areas.

That's why companies hire people, because if they don't hire them it will decrease their profit. There's nothing altruistic about it and it has nothing to do with whether the marginal tax rate on individuals making more than a million dollars a year is 25% or 28% or whatever. It's a rational, profit-driven decision.

I'm going to keep an eye out for more of this stuff...