Job Creation - The disparity between the needs of Main Street and Wall Street’s targets

Most of us see the change in economy as having begun in 2008 but in reality the problems started years before that.  The rise in unemployment has many contributing factors.  While we constantly find ourselves looking to politicians to put in place the right policies to encourage job creation, we forget our part in electing officials that are able to conceptualize our needs and put said policies in place. If we do not participate at the early of the process we really do not have the right to voice our displeasure nor be disgruntled at the policies in place.

Many of us are lukewarm at best during local elections but get caught up with the excitement of nationwide candidates.  If you asked the next person on the street who their local representatives are I would hazard a guess and say 1 in 4 are aware who represents them.  Asking who actually took time to know who is on the ballot before elections would give us less encouraging numbers.  Flip the question and nearly all of us know exactly who Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet or Bill Gates is.  Others are even more familiar Miley Cyrus, Kim Kardashian or the crew from Duck Dynasty.  All in all most are more committed to the votes on "The Voice" or "American's Got Talent" than to their electoral duties as citizens. 

The corporate world's first loyalty is to its investors and its a relationship that requires constant nurturing. Rightly so in a world where capitalism is supposed to reign supreme.  Capitalism encourages competitiveness among us and it is through this that we have made huge strides innovation.  United States rose to greatness through innovation and manufacturing.  The manufacturing provided good paying jobs for the workers as well as good quality products that the workers purchased, plus surplus to supply the world markets.  The innovation has continued unabated with it the rise of companies such as Apple and Facebook.

The most profitable of corporate America, Apple, does most of it's manufacturing overseas but USA is the biggest market for Apple.  So the benefits of the manufacturing are being enjoyed by other countries but the consumption of said products are still in USA.  In the first quarter of 2014 Apple reported earning of $11.62 per share on sales of $45.6 billion.  Apple is not alone.  GE is rumored to have put forward an offer to purchase the French company Alstom as solution to GE long standing large cash being held overseas.  GE is not the only company with large cash reserves that Wall Street has been lobbying for a tax holiday to bring the funds into the USA.  As good as the reports being posted by Facebook the actual number of employees is a mere 6,818.  Apple on the other hand has 50,50 employees.

Needless to say it is abundantly clear that there is no relationship between the targets/estimates Wall Street sets for companies and the much needed job creation that Main Street has been yearning for badly so long.  The Federal Reserve for its part continues to weight the tools it has on hand to decide when the economy will be on sound ground so that they in turn can raise the historically low interest rates.  All in all Main Street continues to struggle.  While its not something we can expect Wall Street to changes it is something that deserves more attention than Congress is paying to the need of job creation.  The decrease in the number of unemployment are but a mere reflection of disgruntle job seekers giving up.