WHO BROKE AMERICA’S JOBS MACHINE?…. Unemployment is the single greatest threat America now faces. Job growth, anemic before the recession, is now non-existent, and promises to be weak for years to come. Some blame foreign competition; others, a lack of investment. But in the next issue of the Washington Monthly, Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman point to a different culprit: corporate consolidation, brought on by decades of weak antitrust enforcement in Washington. Industries from banking to retail to microchips are now so dominated by a few big firms that small businesses — the source of most new jobs — have less and less opportunity to thrive, expand, and challenge the behemoths. The result is a less innovative and dynamic economy.
If this argument is right, then it’s going to take a good deal more than tax breaks and stimulus spending to get America’s jobs machine working again. It’s going to require a federal government that will enforce the nation’s antitrust laws, bring more competition back into markets, and unleash the creative energies of America’s entrepreneurs.
To read Lynn’s and Longman’s story “Who Broke America’s Jobs Machine?” click here.
