A nation’s economy is an engine of wealth. Creating and distributing wealth is the purpose of the economy, and what makes things possible. I cannot afford to build an apartment complex, but a developer, using funds from investors can. That, in turn, provides another investor to buy the building and rent to me, thus distributing the results of their wealth. My rent payment redistributes to them, contributing to the cycle.
You work at your job, making money for your employer, in return for a slice of that pie. Production (and some jobs and investments) creates new wealth; services jobs and other investments distribute that wealth. In recent years, we’ve complained about jobs going overseas, but didn’t really complain about the production that moved earlier – most of us bought the fairytale that a service-based economy would replace the production shipped away.
Unfortunately, we no longer make many of the things we used to, so someone else is taking our money for their goods. This wouldn’t matter if the economy were more global, but when the money flows into their pockets, it stops there, rather than cycling back around to purchase our services. This is good for them, but not for us – instead of a rising tide that lifts all boats, they rise at our expense.
We can’t blame them for it, because we did it to ourselves. We encouraged businesses to relocate elsewhere for cheaper labor. We drove them away with red tape and stiff regulation that they didn’t face elsewhere.
So how do we get out if this situation? We rebuild our production, changing laws to favor businesses who make goods here. A Toyota made in America is a better deal than a Ford made in another country. We don’t close down outside business, we just provide preference for materials and goods made here, creating jobs here.
I don’t mean “Always Buy American”, or “Buy Local”. The consumers should be free to choose in their best interest. If a Korean-made car is the right deal for the buyer, that’s what s/he should buy. But Uncle Sam should not be the travel agent for companies relocating. Unions should stop being greedy. The minimum wage should be scaled.
When we only buy locally, the money changes hands far fewer times, doing less work. The wider the area an economy covers, the more work money does, so long as no-one short-stops it.
Look at a river – eddies can create large, relatively still areas where the water does not flow, whereas rapids move a lot of water quickly.
When the only producers of a commodity don’t continue the cycle, they enrich themselves at their customers’ expense. When they are part of the cycle, everyone wins. A closed system with a drain is a losing game. That’s entropy. An open system, where the circuit is complete, but new materiel is injected regularly, expands. That’s the rising tide we hear about. This is why we need to buy into increasing our share of the market in MAKING goods, not just providing services.
We also need to reduce drag on our economy. Unions strike for increased wages just because they feel they can. Don’t tell me otherwise; my father had to join the union because of his job, and I saw it. Most of the strikes that were called were not due to injustice, insufficient wages, or dangerous job practices, but merely because the union negotiators felt that they could win, and to justify their jobs. They also lobbied government on a wide range of subjects having nothing to do with labor issues, and frequently with a slant diametrically opposed to that of most of their members.
Unions are necessary to an extent – they watch employers encroaching on employee’s rights and provide protection for those rights. But the days when the union was run by the members are over; now the union has employees of their own, who don’t have anything in common with their members. That needs to be reduced, and unions should be prohibited from lobbying on any issue not directly connected to their member’s jobs. An airline union should not be lobbying for or against the death penalty.
More finely, I wouldn’t let them lobby on an issue to permit individuals to privately invest a portion of their Social Security, but would let them do so if the issue were to allow the government to do so regardless of the taxpayer’s choices.
The Minimum Wage drives prices up, yet we also hear how people are unable to support families on it. Well, that’s true, but why do we then make fast food places pay teenagers a living wage? Restaurants and bars can pay below minimum wage because their employees receive tips, which reduces costs for the employer, so small businesses can stay in business.
But other businesses have the choice of paying kids looking for pocket money just as much as an adult with a family to feed , despite a lack of experience, or hire an adult for the job in the first place. So let’s change the law so that it has three scales: Tipped, Student (for high school and college students not supporting themselves), and Adult wage.
Lastly, let’s DEVELOP space. We have no more room to grow down here. An expanding economy or an expanding society is a healthy one, but we haven’t got the room down here.
I don’t care about planting a flag on Mars, or probing Saturn’s rings. We can do that when we get there. But just as the New World gave the Old a new source of goods and materials and a new market, so can space do for us today.
Habitats and factories in orbit can replace polluting industries down here, helping the environment. Mining asteroids can replace mines down here, bringing new sources of ore to our economy and further reducing environmental damage down here.
Every dollar invested in space has been returned many times over, and only the communications, weather, and GPS satellites contribute to the economy by their function. Everything else has been for exploration, scientific knowledge, or international posturing. If we replace scientific exploration and political expeditions for actual development in the next couple of decades, we could realize an even larger and more direct return for our investment.
There’s more to do than just my prescription above, but these are just some of the things we NEED to do, in my opinion, if we are to become a dynamic economy again
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