With campaign season in full swing, I’m subjected daily to candidates promising they’ll “create jobs.” 
Politicians don’t create jobs.
At best, they entice job producers to locate within their districts. That’s great for some people. Not so great for others. Also, politicians must spend tax money to “create” jobs. That represents money now unavailable for other purposes – or to the person it was confiscated from in the first place.
It’s a classic example of Frederic Bastiat’s “what is and not seen.”
In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen.
