Arianna Huffington Says 'Jobs Issue Is A Demand Issue' (VIDEO)

Politicians in Washington have yet to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. Many other Americans have other concerns.

Last night on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Huffington Post Media Group Editor-In-Chief Arianna Huffington, senior correspondent for FOX Business Network Charlie Gasparino, former Clinton Budget Director Alice Rivlin and journalist George Will sat down to debate the question on the minds of many Americans: What's more important -- the federal deficit or the jobs deficit?

Polls continue to indicate that Americans say jobs is the more important issue facing America. The roundtable discussion on This Week, however, painted a more complicated picture. And while Charlie Gasparino says an agreement over the federal deficit might allay the hiring fears of small businesses, Arianna Huffington says the primary hurdle facing the jobs crisis is the lack of demand.

"The jobs issue is a demand issue," Huffington said. "Corporate America has $2 trillion dollars in cash they are not spending, corporate profits are up 60 percent, the problem is not the lack of cash, the problem is not that [businesses] can't borrow money at very reasonable rates."

"The problem is [businesses] don't trust demand," Huffington continued. "By capping spending we're going to make demand even weaker."

Watch the debate on the jobs and federal deficit question on "This Week":

Comments

[Markrsm]

05:09 PM on 07/27/2011

Dear Friends,

You give me $350, I buy a TV the TV is made in China, who got the jobs? Demand is not a jobs issue supply is. If we increase our supply, that means we hire people to make stuff, and this creates wealth.

But to increase demand just to create one more jobs at target, when target gets 5 percent of the money does not have a multiplier, it means for every dollar of debt we get 5 cents of jobs.

What we need is lower the costs of production, so americans can complete again, one step is to cut the 99 week of unemployment, so people are forced to go back to work.

We also need to say, if you are able and do not work, then you get no medicare care, without a work ID card any hospital can turn you away.

This way people that work are better off than people that do not work.

[Turtleposer]

08:31 PM on 07/27/2011

Nonsense. There is no business sense in creating stuff that people aren't able to buy. The demand side has been neglected for way too long. Supply-side economics has gotten to us to this cliff.

[gomezrules]

01:01 PM on 07/27/2011

Interesting. I don't see this anywhere on the HP, Please correct me if I am wrong about that..

http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/AOL

[PRONESE]

10:46 AM on 07/27/2011

AOL- Huffington Post stock prices at all time low today.
Link: http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/AOL
R/ PRONESE

[Joseph Bulko]

08:25 AM on 07/27/2011

Here's my idea to solve the "demand" part of the equation via the creation of a tsunami of new businesses: I've written a proposal that describes a mechanism through which we can fund a massive number of new business ventures by tapping the financial power of Wall Street to create jobs on Main Street. This approach ramps up employment quickly and puts money directly into the hands of the people who need it now: the consumers (whose spending represents 70 percent of GDP). This enormous financial turbo-boost to the economy will reinvigorate economic activity and quickly return the eight million jobs lost during the Great Recession. The purpose of this mechanism is to take a private-sector proactive approach to address the expected long-term high unemployment problem.

You can read the proposal ("A Modest Proposal to Save the American Economy: Entrepreneurial Blitzkrieg as Job Creation Vehicle") and its companion piece ("The 75 Percent Solution? A Moral and Economic Imperative to Create Good Jobs NOW!") here: http://jpbulko.newsvine.com/

Joseph Patrick Bulko, MBA

[Dan Vasquez]

01:17 AM on 07/27/2011

Charlie Gasparino says that small businesses hording cash because they are worried about taxes what thier taxes will be. That is a bold faced LIE! Right now small business people are hurtin worse then people on Welfare.

Don't believe me, ask your local liquor store owner or mechanic how their business is going.

[tjdwill01]

04:50 PM on 07/27/2011

Liquor sales and profits, in most of the country, is up nicely.

[Lloyd Cata]

12:51 PM on 07/26/2011

Impossible for Arianna to read every post, but she's not immune to the Murdoch Magic either;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Lloyd_Cata/super-congress-debt-ceiling_n_907887_99164376.html

So, Ms. Huffington; is it going to be journalism or capitalism? Don't you think they are mutually exclusive? Because considering the 'moderation', there are times when journalists must consider the facts versus the money. Journalism and the truth are as distinct as money and power, but one feeds the other. The question is which is the host and which is the parasite, at any given time.

[Rick Gillespie]

11:48 AM on 07/26/2011

This is the whole chicken and the egg thing all over again. The demand is created by a healthy work force. If the numb nutts with all that cash started building stuff with local workers by definition the denmand would raise. That is why there needs to be incentives for lower taxes related to the unemployment rate. So far I have only heard the chicken and the egg argument against doing that.

[kathykathy]

10:09 AM on 07/26/2011

She's right! It's DEMAND STUPID!

[MtnGeek]

10:59 AM on 07/26/2011

Oh really? How about we demand they bring all the jobs back from overseas? There is still a demand for these jobs, but they were outsourced. Let's bring back those jobs where there is already a demand.

[uniquindividual]

09:32 AM on 07/26/2011

the jobs issue is a trade with totalitarians issue.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SXu-IBM6k3I/AAAAAAAAEXE/Q2KYO8ce_9Q/s1600-h/TradeDeficitGDP.jpg

[goldheart]

09:25 AM on 07/26/2011

I have always said that President Obama should have tackled the job crisis, even before health care. If people are working, hopefully, the job they have will provide health care. In my opinion, there is enough money in this country for anybody who wants a job should be able to get it....maybe some sort of global boycott will force these corporations to create jobs in the country they are stationed!!

[olephart]

09:22 AM on 07/26/2011

Creating jobs and balancing the budget are both important. What our geniuses in both Parties don’t want to admit is you can do both at the same time.

Supply side tax cuts don’t create jobs. Keynesian tax cuts are inefficient at job creation. Note that Bush’s tax cuts yielded the jobless recovery of 2001 – 2004. The net job creation for his first term was ZERO! Note that the stimulus has played out and both the Bush tax cuts and Obama’s payroll tax cuts have been in effect since January and the economy is faltering. These cuts reduce revenues by $500 billion per year.

Spending is out of control but it’s not just the total amount it’s where the money is going. Social Security and Medicare should be decoupled from the Federal Budget. They have their own funding and co-mingling these is theft. The remaining expenditures are overwhelmingly military/security in nature. This is the 800 pound gorilla no one will challenge. The wars, Homeland Security, intelligence, and increased defense spending has added $300 billion to the yearly deficit. These are not effective job creating programs.

We are generating $800 billion yearly deficits from these two items and we are getting very little bang for the bucks. If these were eliminated and only half of the windfall was invested in job creating programs like infrastructure, alternate energy and tax cuts from the BOTTOM UP there would be significant improvement in both jobs creation and the deficit.

[Timma]

08:42 AM on 07/26/2011

The economic law of supply and demand isn't a law unless it applies in all cases. Human capital is one of the most undervalued and underused resources. Republicans and many Democrats still don't understand it. As always Arianna is right on the money.

[jdbond]

08:31 AM on 07/26/2011

Demand? What's that? I thought "job creators" had no money hence no job creation. Government is breaking their backs with too much tax. I hear some are paying as much as 20% federal tax!

[olephart]

08:43 AM on 07/26/2011

Wrong again Lib. The Fortune 400 pays an average of 16.6% in taxes. How do you expect these people to create jobs if you're taking away that much from the trillion or so in earnings they have? I mean how would you like to live on 83.4% of a lousy billion dollars?

[goldheart]

09:28 AM on 07/26/2011

Oh, I think I can live happily off of 83.4% of a billion dollars...

Corporations is a business structure..period!! One of their directive is to create jobs..period!! so take some of their profit and create jobs..why, because it is the right thing to do!!

[gerald4]

12:13 PM on 07/26/2011

How do you think that US manufacturing companies could ever possibly create any jobs in the USA if they are hamstrung with more expensive labor costs, more expensive electrical energy costs, health care payroll tax costs, unemployment payroll tax costs, social security and medical care payroll tax costs, environmental manufacturing costs, fringe (holiday and vacation) benefit payroll costs, OSHA compliance payroll costs, union labor work rules, anti-business laws, and general anti-business attitudes that make manufacturing products in the USA many many times more costly than manufacturing the same product in almost any other foreign country.

Those factors need to change before any new jobs will be created in the USA!

Any new jobs to meet any new demand will be created in foreign countries!

[jdbond]

01:28 PM on 07/26/2011

Perhaps I can help you here.

We live in US, a developed country (or so the claim is). Everything costs more here. What you are basically saying is that US employees should get paid same salary(as Chinese workers), no health benefits, unsafe working environments, no legal protection,.....to make us competitive against China. This is what you want, right? An average American as poor as Chinese?

I am all for "no-unions" (we have virtually no unions compared to many other "rich" and developing countries)

P.S: People pay payroll taxes, not corporations.

[jdbond]

01:31 PM on 07/26/2011

By the way, US government can easily take care of "cost differential" by slapping massive tariff on anyone not building stuff in US or using cheap countries as manufacturing base. I know, I know..so anti business because it will not allow corporations to make record billions of dollars in profit and make "walmart" family richer but it will bring manufacturing back to US, reduce poverty and actually reduce the tax burden on rich. It's simple, you don't sell in US if you don't comply to our rules.

[themodernleader]

07:59 AM on 07/26/2011

Congratulations for pushing for jobs. Now I ask that you show some selflessness and patriotism and call for graduated taxation and a fair,free environment for industry, business and commerce wthin America protected by international mercantelism. I commend you for growing and developing by selecting competent staff and keeping your mind unclogged of unsupported assumptions.

[kauthon]

07:45 AM on 07/26/2011

The problem is we have a billion people making goods below real cost. So we are short of nothing hence need nothing.