In my previous post I outlined why jobs don’t come from rich people: capitalism runs on spending (sales), not savings. Job opportunities appear naturally when businesses forecast sales growth and expand output accordingly (and similarly disappear under reverse conditions). When viewing the economy as a whole, we can observe that private sector investment responds to rising incomes and spending as entrepreneurs expand output to match market demand and banks have confidence lending. In the absence of spending growth, accumulated savings do nothing.
So when tax policy provides powerful incentives for all households with surplus earnings to not spend their income (e.g. incentives like salary-sacrifice and other investment tax advantages), another source of spending must compensate for such savings and buy the output that workers are being paid to produce. If there is no other source of spending to replace what is being saved then sales decline, inventories build up, the economy slows, and people lose jobs.
To state the problem in simple terms, incomes are a cost to businesses. So if some portion of incomes in the economy are saved and not spent, then some portion of the economy is not able to sell all its output. Spending equals business income. Economic growth necessitates that incomes are spent, or some other source of spending must make up the difference.
This begs the question: how do we get more spending, especially when the economy is in decline?
Read more at Australian Real Progressives