Think of this when you hear how many jobs a government project is going to create

Here's something I've been pondering for the last few weeks. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, is about to lease a new mega-warehouse.  My boss and I have been working on the deal for a couple of months. 
We already have several warehouses and had to justify the deal to the company owners, and to our president, Marvel Variants. 

(On one of our tours of the facility, Mr. Variants took this pic of me lounging at the spot where I hope to take my lunch breaks.  I consider it to be one of the greatest Libertarian portraits ever produced, and I hope the jury will remember this deed when Variants is put on trial for ripping off comic book geeks.)

Anyway, to justify the new warehouse, my boss and I had to determine how many forklifts we could eliminate.  The lease at this space is less per square foot than one of our other locations, so that helped.  We figured out how much time we could save by consolidating some locations.  The calculations for how much we would save on fuel took up a couple of days. 

Here's the big one, the one that probably closed the deal for us....
We won't have to hire as many people. 

I repeat - we won't have to hire as many people. 

I think my employers have a good relationship with their employees.  In years past, they've actually gone to the bank to borrow money so they could give Christmas bonuses!!  But the process of purchasing labor from people is only a means to an end, and that end is to provide display fixtures to grocery stores in exchange for money.  We do not have a goal of saving and creating jobs. 

(Otherwise, we would lobby for the government to outlaw forklifts and trucks.  Think of all the jobs that would save or create.) 

Now, think of the yammering you hear when Congressman Felcher is trying to justify a new project in his district. 

This new Perpetual Motion Facility will bring 1,397 new jobs to North Texas ! 
Our investment in Bottled Fairy Flatulence will employ 257 citizens of the D/FW area ! 
The Porkulus Plan has saved or created 2 million jobs since 2009 ! 

And on and on and on.   The higher the number, the more likely the boondoggle will come into being, right? 

So if you had control of your tax money had an extra $15,000, and wanted to invest it in a place that would use it wisely, where would you put it? 
Would you want to give the money to John Boehlout Boehner and The Teleprompter Jesus so they could hire as many people as possible?  Even if a lot of those people are just standing around or doing busywork?
Or would you want to invest it in a project that was trying to use the money as efficiently as possible? 
How much more would you be willing to pay for a computer that was produced by 6,000 people instead of 4,000 ??

One last question....Since Washington is now infested with Keynesian economists who are trying to stimulate the economy by "creating jobs", is there any doubt in your mind why our economy is in the tank? 

Leave employers alone to fight it out and compete.  Stop using tax money to fund insanity.  The entrepreneurs, not the Community Organizers, will come up with the best use for it.  The jobs and the prosperity will follow.