Jobs Are not the Answer … but Then What Is?

Wisconsin Bookwatch, Jan, 2005

Jobs Are Not The Answer ... But Then What Is?

Angus MacIntyre

American Book Publishing

PO Box 65624, Salt Lake City, UT 84165

1589821564 $19.95 american-book.com

Jobs Are Not The Answer ... But Then What Is? is a serious-minded treatise on economic growth and turnaround in local communities. Although it compiles the experiences and especially successes of efforts to lift stagnant communities out of bad economic times, Jobs Are Not The Answer ... But Then What Is? is not primarily a solution manual but rather an effort to share the experiences of human beings struggling to change bad situations. Author Angus MacIntyre speaks from personal experience observing and helping local communities, and warns against the pitfalls of common throw-money-at-it solutions to local economic depression. Remedies that rely on tax breaks tend to attract footloose businesses that care nothing for the community, and which may even drive under stable local operations then close up shop as soon as the free ride ends. Remedies that rely too heavily out outside investment rather than local capital are dangerously unstable and leave a local community vulnerable to the whims of devastating larger forces. Jobs Are Not The Answer ... But Then What Is? reveals that helping people out of economic depression is far more complicated than simply "creating jobs", but does so with an emphasis upon innovative solutions to long-standing social problems - the most successful remedies are the ones that can be cultivated with the labor and commitment of the folks at home.