Corporations and Their Tax Breaks

So, how are corporations using their tax breaks? 

Answer A. To actually hire more of the unemployed workers whose neighbors are paying for the tax breaks?

Answer B. To replace more U.S. workers with machines and hire more workers in the emerging markets around the world that all are competing for?

This question should be making a lot of policy makers a bit nervous!

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“To the extent they are hiring, companies like 3M and General Mills are adding more people abroad than domestically. [emphasis added] Connie Pautz, a spokeswoman for Hutchinson Technologies, which will cut about 600 people — or nearly half its Minnesota staff — over the next 12 months, said the company had automated much of its operations. ‘So we don’t need as many people,’ [emphasis added] she said.”

Motoko Rich, Encouraging Numbers, at First Glance,  New York Times, May 13, 2011 (May 14 print edition).

“Still, consumer spending in the United States has been surpassed by business spending.  ‘The recovery, such as it is in the United States, is really a commercially driven, as opposed to a consumer-driven thing [emphasis added],’ Timothy H. Murphy, the chief product officer for MasterCard, said at a recent investor conference.”

Christine Hauser, Recovery Seen in Rising Use of Credit Cards, New York Times, May 13, 2011 (May 14 print edition).