I posted the other day about “What would You do” if you were President. It is a tricky question indeed. I’ve gotten one response but have been asked more than a few times what I would do.
Given the issues…..overspending, baby boomer bubble, entitlements, unemployment, etc., there’s no one panacea for the cure. But if you think about the problem(s), they, besides the baby boomer bubble, but then again maybe not, they all stem from the fact that we have become a nation of consumers. We no longer manufacture. We consume. How is that? For the last two decades, we have been more concerned with the masses – that group of people that I like to differentiate as those who vote for a living, not work for one. We, and by ‘we’ I mean government, then us because we have allowed it, we are more concerned with the price of a shirt than where it is made. We are more concerned about the price of a gallon of gas than where it was produced. We as a government have drifted this direction because the consumers have always outnumbered the producers. Both consumers and producers vote. That is why we have NAFTA. That is why we are so imbalanced in our trade agreements with China, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Viet Nam, and wherever else you can think of. It was never to lend such an unfair trade advantage or even penalize American jobs. It was price and price alone.
Now consider the fact that we, as a country, have sent jobs overseas. Every time you buy a shirt made in Indonesia from Wal Mart, you secure that overseas job. We no longer have the armies of seamstresses, machinists, laborers, operators and people willing to dig ditches, drive tractors, drive nails or sweep floors for a living. We have converted our skilled labor force to be computer operators, paramedics, nurses – those jobs are now our skilled labor force. There’s no harm in that, but what happens when the generation of laborers retired is gone. Those skills will be lost forever in the United States. Those are the skills that founded this nation. We have given them away. Let me say that again – WE HAVE GIVEN THEM AWAY!
Now, to the question – what would I do? Given the overuse of the Executive Order by G. H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, G. W. Bush and Obama, consider the possibility. Issue an Executive Order that, in the first year, requires any retailer, no matter what you are selling, any retailer must present 50% foreign goods and 50% goods wholly produced in America to the public for sale. No, Wal Mart can’t offer a thousand shirts made overseas and a thousand nails made in Louisiana and call it even. It must be balanced offering of any and all goods. Yes, it will dirve prices up – for the short term. Yes, there will be shortages – for the short term. But leave it up to American ingenuity to catch up to the production of other country and things will change. Retired skilled laborers will be called back to work to get things going and then teach others. Unemployed will become employed because if there are jobs open they won’t receive unemployment benefits. The federal government will not have violated any agreements. People will be getting off the government dole and back to paying taxes. The involvement of the government will be only to clear the way for businesses to start back up by defunding the EPA, OSHA, elimination of the NLRB and clearing government out of the way of business. The enforcement of this Executive Order will be through the Federal Trade Commission – a cabinet position over an agency that reports to the Executive Branch.
Not the answer to all, but a start. Congress can get on board or not.
I’m 1American.