Mitt Romney claims credit for the creation of 100,000 jobs. Let's look into this claim. We start with Staples; they sell office supplies. Is this a newly discovered market that Bain Capital has developed under the genius of Mitt Romney? No, there has been a market for office supplies ever since offices were invented. Let's see, that would be since 1600 or so? I dunno; the beginning of offices is lost in the mists of history. Hell, there were probably parchment suppliers back in Roman times, and clay tablet vendors back in Sumerian times.
What did offices do before the advent of Staples? Surely, back then, businesspeople needed stationery, and paper clips, and staples (!), and ink, and typewriters. (Remember typewriters?) It seems reasonable to believe that there were people back then who were willing to sell these items to offices. Indeed, this seems to be the case. There existed offices back in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 (to name just the decades I am personally familiar with). They could not have existed without vendors to sell them office supplies.
So, along comes Mitt Romney, and Bain Capital, and Staples. Instant success! The former vendors exist no longer, because Staples has taken their place. Instead of just selling stationery and paper clips and envelopes, they sell a wide variety of high tech products that offices use. And since most homes have an office of sorts, Staples sells to retail customers as well. I would guess the home office is their biggest source of revenue.
So who gets the credit for all those retail sales jobs? Mitt Romney claims to have created all of them. But did Mitt invent the microprocessor? This tiny device lies at the heart of most of Staples' sales, and without it Staples simply wouldn't exist. Even the furniture around me, some of which I bought at Staples, owes its very existence to the ubiquitous chip. The credit for all the jobs of Staples' employees rightfully belongs to the people--millions of them--who developed the IT industry over the last half century. Mitt Romney had nothing to do with creating those jobs.
Arguably, Staples is a good thing, because a larger store can operate more efficiently, and thereby reduce costs to their customers. They can buy office supplies in greater bulk, thereby reducing distribution costs. They are more efficient because they can control inventory better, advertise nationally, and do the job of supplying offices with their needs using fewer employees.
Oops! Fewer employees? How does fewer employees equate with more jobs?
Do you see the problem with Mitt Romney claiming credit for the creation of all the jobs that Staples now has on its books? The problem is that the jobs he arguably created were at the expense of existing jobs. Absent Staples, you can bet that somebody out there would be selling ink cartridges and keyboards.
The bald fact is that Mitt Romney is responsible for job destruction, not job creation. He may be marginally responsible for increased productivity, but it was at the expense of jobs. Arguing that he is a job creator is just plain false.
Need we visit Domino's Pizza? The need for food goes back even further in history than the need for office supplies. Whatever jobs are on the books of Domino's Pizza must have been taken from the books of other suppliers of ready-to-eat food. People eat only so much food. Well, most people. :-)
The issue of job creation is not well understood by politicians, and even less so by Mitt Romney. When industry creates something new that is desirable and useful, it creates new jobs. Selling office supplies are not a new idea. Selling pizza is not a new idea. Before Mitt Romney, there were people who worked in offices and ate food. When he "created" those jobs, he enriched himself and his associates, but he did not benefit the American economy. Jobs were not created; they were merely shuffled around.