Small Business Economy

Recently I heard a speaker refer to our current economic situation in the United States as an entrepreneurial economy. Trying to summarize his comments is difficult, but it included that most people will not find a single job which allows them to support themselves and their families. He suggested that instead, we should all be spending our free time, doing something on the side which could make us additional money. He asserted that the day is likely coming when the side job will be the only job opportunity we have.

This speaker was attempting to be helpful, and I know that the American dream is best achieved by hard work and original ideas. But I also know that the majority of new businesses fail before ever turning a profit. So while this approach might make a few people succeed in big ways, it is not going to stabilize the US economy as a whole.

The average person doesn’t have a marketable product, nor the expertise to run a business. This fact, causes many people to consider canned opportunities, such as franchises or multi-level marketing. These two types of side jobs often turn out to be predatory and opportunistic, so except for those who have done extensive and careful research, most people will lose money instead of gain.

But even if the majority of people could find success in these side jobs, what would the economy look like? Essentially we would have a preponderance of small businesses, capable of only producing small products. Anything which takes a larger manufacturing process to produce would have to come to us from other countries. The American economy was made strong by being the producer of these goods, and we will not find that same strength in small businesses.

Stabilizing the economy, even in the modern age, I believe will involve bringing some manufacturing and large employers back to the United States. So we need to stop demonizing large employers and make it practical to manufacture in this country once again.

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President’s Day

Happy President’s Day. Is this a day you celebrate?

Some people seem to celebrate President’s Day by going out and trading presidential flash cards for merchandise at local sales outlets. And too many people believe spending is the primary indicator of a healthy economy. It isn’t.

A healthy economy should be marked by jobs and production. Spending in an economy without production will send money out of the country to whoever produced the goods. The jobs supported by it will be part time, near minimum wage jobs, without benefits.

Oh and by the way, despite my joke about presidential flash cards, not every bill of US currency has a President on it.  Can you name two men pictured on current US currency who were never president of the United States?

The State of the Union

President Obama is set to give a state of the Union address tomorrow. Since we have entered a very difficult period of history, I thought I might offer him some suggestions on things he might want to say.

“Jobs have continued to decrease in the United States. Nevertheless we have followed a path of regulating the remaining jobs out of existence. This is a part of the change we can be proud of. We have leveled the playing field in America by pulling more and more of the middle class down into poverty. A major portion of this leveling affect has been the mandates of the Affordable Care Act. This law has pushed employers to decrease hours of their workers in order to avoid paying the unwieldy mandated benefits.

“There are more people on public assistance in this country than ever before, which we also claim as a victory. Nothing makes a voter come to be in favor of welfare as much as being a recipient. No one should go hungry in this, the greatest nation on earth. Neither should we the policy makers miss a chance to make hungry voters dependent upon us and our policies.

“Millions of people have been dropped by their health insurance, but we have successfully made them dependent on the government by making it impossible to pick up private insurance. They now must rely on a chaotic, expensive, unreliable government system for their healthcare. This too is a part of the change we are proud of. We can point to several hundred people who were benefitted, and the millions who were called on to make sacrifices should be proud to do so, or face the political name calling of left.

“This overhaul of the healthcare system is going to be the legacy of my administration. Nothing leaves the brand of change quite as deeply as voting for laws we don’t understand and have not discussed. As this law is phasing its way into implementation, we have guaranteed the ripples of change will continue to reverberate through our economy.

“The financial adjustments necessary to pay for these changes drove up our national debt in astronomical ways. This is another first of this administration. We can truly say we have driven the United States up to the brink of default without accepting blame. In fact we have managed to lay the blame for every battle at the feet of our opponents.

“In summary we have created new formulas for political success, for suppressing political opponents, and for restructuring American society. All we really promised was change, and everyone must agree, we have blindly and foolishly followed a policy of change.”

The War on Poverty

Recently President Obama addressed the fifty year anniversary of the war on poverty. This phrase was initiated by Lyndon Johnson as he instituted several actions to address poverty in America. The goals of this war on poverty include things like ending hunger, housing the homeless and education programs. These actions were intended to extend opportunities to all people.

Food programs ranging from neighborhood food banks to food stamps accomplish a lot to prevent hunger, but also have fostered an entitlement attitude. Educational programs have managed to get every school district in America dependent on federal dollars to operate. These dollars have had little success at raising the quality of education in lower income districts. Housing projects were built to provide good quality housing for the poor. But all over the country these projects dilapidated into horrible places. They quickly became the face of poverty in their time.

I suggest that the most important thing we can do to battle poverty is to bring jobs back to the country. When we give people public assistance they often just fit a different niche in the bigger picture of poverty. Jobs give people dignity and a desire to earn their way into higher positions.

But the government practices and policies currently in place have decreased the number of jobs, and made them less likely to provide adequate wages. The decreased number of jobs and increased enrollment of government programs has created a heavily divided society. Some feel America must be great enough to take care of its impoverished. Others feel they are unfairly burdened for others and left without a means of caring for themselves. Hostility between the two groups has been steadily growing.

Take note though, this aspect of the problem of poverty was created by the war on poverty. The disparity between haves and have nots should be addressed first by creation of jobs, not the creation of additional public assistance.

Labor day

Those who work for a living make America better; those who do not work weaken it.

Those who work for a living help maintain the economy; those who do not work destabilize it.

Those who work contribute to the national standard of living; those who do not work lower it.

Those who work raise the standard of national education; those who do not work undermine the primary reason for education.

Those who work can raise the cultural climate of our country; those who do not work lower the quality of our culture.

Those who work will always have respect; those who do not work will have less respect and may forget how to behave respectfully.

Those who work will always have greater dignity; those who do not work will never feel as good about themselves.

Those who work will protect America’s freedom and ability to stay free; those who do not work move our nation toward slavery.

Those who work deserve a fair wage, safety in the workplace, and the gratitude of the nation.

Happy Labor Day.