Dear Vice President Biden (may I call you Joe?):

Friday’s dismal unemployment numbers must have you and your fellow administration officials scratching your heads. Even though you’re now telling us those 8 million jobs aren’t coming back, surely you guys were hoping for some good news before the mid-term elections.  Right? After all, you and your boss did run on Hope and Change.

Sorry, Joe.  After all that you and your central planners have changed, you’re going to have to keep hoping. You see, the job creators of this country have gotten wise and cynical.   They have come to realize that you cannot be trusted.

I’m sorry if this comes as a shock to you.  It shouldn’t though.  It really is simple economics—the type that any kid who’s run a lemonade stand understands. Do you really want to build a lemonade stand on a dead end street?

Oh, geez, Joe! I’m sorry. I forgot…none of your guys have ever run a business, have they?  That’s right. They’re great at running campaigns, but running a business?…Who’d have thought you’d need someone with some experience?  You guys have gotten so used to DC and policy making, maybe you forgot that your decisions have consequences.

Well, let’s make this simple, shall we?

The reason your unemployment numbers are high, Joe, is one simple reason.  America’s job creators don’t trust you. They have become ‘risk averse.’ That’s a really cool term, Joe—you should look it up: risk averse.

In other words, Joe, people do not want to invest in new equipment or new people when the risks are unknown.  An unknown, Joe, is unpredictable.  And people like predictability.  Especially people who have money to invest.  Contrary to what you and your guys think in DC, most of those investors (the job creators) didn’t get their money by being stupid or evil and greedy.  And, they certainly don’t like throwing their money into an investment that is a  loser—which is what you and your central planners have turned America into…a losing investment.

In fact, most investors, when faced with the type of risk you guys bring to the table will do one of two things (sometimes both):  They’ll either put their money into a better investment (somewhere else), or they’ll sit on their cash.  In fact, Joe, I heard just the other day that businesses are sitting on about $1.4 trillion right now and they don’t want to put it into the economy because you’ve got them scared, Joe.  They’re risk averse. (See? There’s that phrase again.)

Oh, you can keep prattling about how you inherited this mess.  And, truth be told, you did.  But, it was you and your guys in DC that had your thumbs in it as much as the guys on the other side of the aisle.  The problem is, Joe, as bad as the situation was, you guys have really made it worse.

Let’s take a look at how you’ve done that, Joe.

First, you and the people you’ve surrounded yourselves with have made demonizing business into a religion—actually more a cult than a religion, but let’s not get sidetracked here.

You see, while they may be friends of yours, your union boss-buddies track records are pretty abysmal. And, you’ve gotta admit, as much as they whisper in your ear about how “evil” capitalism is, not a damn one of them have created a single private-sector job.  Sure they live off the private sector, just as you do, Joe.  But that’s about as far as it goes.

Second, your friend Timmy G. has pumped trillions of paper (fiat currency) into the economy, devaluing the dollar in the hopes—there’s that word again, hope—that investors might swallow hard and somehow go along with the charade. Frankly, Joe, were it not for the fact that the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) suck worse than we do, we’d be in even worse shape.  Even still, is it any wonder that the UN is calling to dump the dollar?  Geez, Joe.  You guys have got it so mucked up down there in DC that even Africa is looking to be a safer investment than the good ol’ U.S.—Africa, Joe! I mean, c’mon, really? WTF?!?

Third.  Spending.  Can we talk about spending, Joe? Look we all get buried with a couple of extra credit cards now and then, right? But, dang, man! You guys have gone on a spending spree that makes FDR look like Ebenezer Scrooge.  Seriously, dude, don’t your grandkids give you the evil eye over how much debt you’ve saddled them with? Or have they been brainwashed in the Keynesian crappola too?

Fourth, that little health care thingy? Now, that was some joke (a ‘pretty big f**king deal’), huh? We didn’t want it, so you rammed it though and now you guys still can’t be honest about that.  You know (and we know too) you guys really want socialized medicine and that’s what we’ll get in a few years. But, your numbers keep changing, dude, and they will keep changing as companies dump their employees onto the government rolls. [You didn't think we knew about that, did you?]

But, here’s what you don’t seem to get, Joe.  The doctors that you think are going to stick with your plan? They won’t. Why should they?  You’ve just nationalized them as human beings.  It’d be better for them to treat animals then it would be to stay in your sick system.  Nice job, Joe.  By the way, you’ve probably figured out by now that, as the best docs leave and the meat cutters get into the business, your lines get bigger and the care goes down.  You have figured that out, haven’t you? [Say 'yes' please...otherwise, we might think of you as merely dumb, as opposed to malicious.]

[Hey! Have you ever seen Soylent Greene, Joe? You should check it out someday.  Have the grand kids watch it too.  I don't want to spoil the plot for you, but it is truly the world you guys are creating.]

Fifth, those damn unions. I know, I know, I mentioned them earlier, but this has got a bunch of people irked.  You know, it’s bad enough for them to go beating up on people as they do, and trample on people’s private property, but do you guys really believe that unionizing the nation by eliminating secret-ballot votes is right?  And, do you honestly think, those job creators that we’re talking about are going to stick around and let the government dictate wages and benefits? Seriously, Joe? They won’t.  [R-I-S-K  A-V-E-R-S-I-O-N.] They’ll be outta here faster than you can say “cap and trade.” Oh! I almost forgot…

Sixth: Cap and Trade. Okay, look here’s the deal: You know and we know that the whole global warming thing is a scam. Even Al “the sex poodle” Gore knows it’s a scam.  Problem is, you guys have so much invested in seeing this deal go through that you’ve lost all sense of what’s right.  [Yeah, I agree, the oil spill was a great idea to use to pitch cap and trade.  Who's idea was that?  Rahm's?]  Problem is, Joe, no one’s buying that one either.  In fact, all you’re doing is making more of those job creators say, “um…nope…not hiring this month.”  [Risk aversion, Joe...look it up.]

Seventh, tax increases. Our friend Veronica laid it out pretty nicely here, Joe.  However, suffice it to say, with your looming tax increases right around the corner, Veronica and her family are but a microcosm of  the rest of America: We’ve all become risk averse.

In any case, Joe, I really didn’t mean to write such a long letter to you and was really only writing to show you this guy that was on TV the other day talking about “risk aversion.”  However, I figured, given Friday’s bad job numbers, you guys were looking for some answers and you ought to know the truth.  Anyway, check out the video below, Joe.  This guy McMahon seems to get that whole “risk aversion” thing.  And, you know what, Joe?  It might do you guys in DC some good to listen to him because he’s one of those job creators you guys are always demonizing.

In closing, Joe, John Keynes was a doofus.  Try reading some Milton Friedman for a change.  Maybe things will start looking up for you (and the country) if you do.

Ciao!

A POST SCRIPT [and UPDATE]:  Joe,  I need to clarify a comment above.

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.”Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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