As we enter the silly season of political theater it is good to remember that there are only two ways the government can create jobs. Draft everyone into the army or stimulate the economy by spending. All the noise about tax breaks and budget balancing giving the business owner confidence to hire people is nonsense. The business owner will follow economic opportunity and if the economy is expanding business will expand along with it in an effort to make more money. If you want to shrink government spending you will curtail economic activity. I am not arguing for either course but pleading for the idiots in Washington and the news media to at least use simple accurate economic concepts. If you believe that balancing the budget right now is the absolute best thing we can do for future generations that's fine, just admit it will increase unemployment in the short run and prolong the current slump. If you think job creation is most important please recognize that at some point the debt will need to be addressed either by lower government spending including entitlements and / or higher tax collections.

Ten years ago the tech bubble broke causing untold damage to the investor. I have always contended that the investing public has a 10 year memory. As I see increased IPOs for companies like Groupon, Pandora and Zinga it seems like the lessons of the late 1990's and 2000 are being forgotten. The investors seem to be infatuated with companies that have a suspect business model or an interesting way of looking at earnings. "Beware of Geeks bearing gifts."