A basis of things that can be done to change the American way of economic values. Recovery from recession. Government, and the American publics financial responsibility. Transition from the old job market into a new technological age. How going green can provide jobs for millions of Americans. by Frank Brooks
(libertarian)
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The United States still in the grasp of recession faces many challenges. We are at war, and we are in the process of changing our structure of government. It is frustrating for the American people in these times. Jobs are not exactly plentiful, and cost cutting is hurting the stock market. Banks are not holding what they had before, and the people are safe guarding what little they have for themselves. We are living on survival tactics to keep from going belly up as a nation. Many mistakes were made, and now everyone is paying the price.
The main goal in focus is to create job growth, and get money circulating. Stabilizing our economy is what we are after, and we are shooting pool trying to figure this one out. The government is using buy outs to save some jobs but it does not seem like they are creating any new ones. Then when any job is available for the average Joe it is usually not paying nearly enough to be supportive. To top that off what little money a person is making is taxed, and if they are not making enough neither is the government.
So what do we do? Why is our work system becoming consistently more derelict? It is simple enough to figure out that we are not being responsible as Americans appreciating our own money. We are getting greedier by the day living the American dream. If you own, and operate a business you should provide substantial raises for your employees in the amount of dollars, and not just cents. Giving an employee a twenty cent raise a year after starting them at a bottom tier wage hardly fits the bill. That only contributes to a more servile system. Then you wonder why you yourself are going out of business? Well the same thing is happening all over, and nobody is spending any money. It is a boomerang of bankruptcy, and it really boils down to the higher ups taking advantage of profits.
One way the government has tried to solve the economic crises is with stimulus packages. Well that is not working either. Teasing the American people with an average about five hundred dollars is not sufficient. That is only going to cover a late bill or maybe a new television. Really they should have pushed for an average of two thousand dollars a person and things would have changed. Yet they say we would have caused a massive inflation. That is not proven because it has not been done.
We are set in a power system, and it doesn't look like it is getting any better for a majority of Americans. Are we all supposed to live five to a two bedroom apartment, and hope gas prices don't bankrupt us all? Or are we supposed to wait until the one worker in the house loses his or her job? This is ridiculous. People should be out buying homes, and new vehicles. They should also be spending their money on a weekly basis keeping local businesses afloat. It sounds really selfish to say any of those things. In reality many places in the world do better when we are spending our money. When we have the ability to buy foreign goods, and products that is helping their economy. So we can't say we are the only nation that is being hit badly by the recession because it is worldwide. We are just in the center of it.
Since America is suffering from job growth issues we have to change the status of our job market. Really it is in the palm of our hands but it is not being acted on as vastly as it should. China has challenged the world in alternative energy sources, and we are not competing the way a super power should. They are building solar panels in large numbers which is saving them a lot of money, and putting people to work. We should be doing the same here in America investing time and money into our future. Not just in solar technology but just about everything else in that field. Another excellent way of creating jobs is cleaning up what mess we do have with pollution. There is a Texas sized island of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean that is in dire need of resolution. Why can't the American government put people to work cleaning up a mess like that? We cannot expect this nation to survive as strongly as it has without intervening with real methods of progress. We could create a wave of jobs demolishing old structures, and building new ones. Those are just minor examples. It could go a long way once nail is hammered back into the system. We just need to brainstorm, and act more swiftly.
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Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: August 3, 2010 05:13:17 PM
Hi Frank,
So you've never been responsible for making a payroll. Employers can't stay in business by paying workers more than they are worth to the business. A raise should be determined by the estimation of the increased value an employee brings to the enterprise. Paying someone a higher wage for the same work as a new-hire just because the older worker is comfortable doing the same job for 10 years leads to wage disparity and a stagnant enterprise. I worked at IBM back in the 80's where I saw first-hand how such practices had created an enormously stagnant bureaucracy of dead-wood office workers who were just going through the motions of work...adding nothing to the enterprise but expecting to be paid well based on seniority. I also witnessed the first downsizing at IBM where I saw these cogs get shuffled out the door through various programs and enticements.
In unskilled or low-skilled jobs where many people do the exact same thing the additional value each individual brings to the enterprise is negligible. Raises should be incentives for improvement and taking on greater responsibility not rewards for not yet getting fired.
Our FED, the minimum wage and the suffocating power of unions have inflated our average lifestyle to an unsustainable level. It has to retreat so US labor can compete with labor elsewhere in the world. Folks also have to learn something useful in the new, lower, economy. For now the government is trying to absorb as many unemployed people as possible by expanding government spending to unprecedented levels but soon they will realize the best their efforts can do amounts to a drop in a rain storm. Our lifestyle is unsustainable.
Anyway, if pretending that money grows on trees was the way to fix a debt-driven economic collapse, it would have been found out long ago.
