Sam Bregman, again

Sam Bregman is clueless. His cluelessness on economics drives me nuts. The latest exhibit is this piece in the Albuquerque Journal in which he again takes Gov. Martinez to task for “not creating jobs.”

I have debunked Bregman in the past, but I’ll take this opportunity to do it once again.

1) Politicians and government don’t create jobs. Yes, I know, plenty of people bring home paychecks from the government, but everything government does requires it to take resources from other parts of the economy. It merely shifts resources, usually to less economical/efficient uses;

2) Governors are not kings/queens. Gov. Martinez heads up one branch of New Mexico’s government (the executive). The Legislature and the Courts are dominated by Democrats. If Republicans held all three branches and the economy was in terrible shape, Bregman might have a leg to stand on, but he doesn’t;

3) New Mexico’s unemployment rate is 6.6 percent. That is too high, but it is lower than that in 33 other states and lower than the national average of 8.3 percent. The national economy, lest Bregman forget, is governed by a federal government that is headed up by President Obama. As I noted in a previous blog posting, Obama’s record on jobs is terrible. What is Bregman’s excuse for that?

4) On a more personal note, I suppose Bregman would know something about killing jobs in New Mexico. He has personally done it and no, I’m not referring to his career as a lawyer. Rather, he used to own the New Mexico Thunderbirds basketball team, but sold them to an out-of-state interest that moved them out of New Mexico, thus costing several people their jobs or at least moving them out of state. Do I blame Bregman for this? Not really. I went to a few T-birds games and enjoyed them, but if he was losing gobs of money on the deal, I don’t expect him to continue pouring money into it. But, it is bit silly for him to keep making such silly points in the newspaper.

I await Bregman’s opinion pieces on the job-killing aspects of minimum wage increases.