Economics 101: We need jobs!

I realize that by stating I’ve been working a lot of late which makes it virtually impossible for me to even consider blogging…I’m inviting attack.

Yes, I’ve been deluged with work, I’ve been getting home later and, yes, I do have a great health care package. In other words, I am now a target. I am one of those deemed to be “more fortunate” than some others are. Actually, from what I’ve been reading, I am “more fortunate” than plenty of blue collar Americans. And who is calling me this? Why, the newest victim class. The “less fortunate.”

You know, it was one thing when the folks not overburdened with money, possessions and benefits went after the rich, just as they were taught to do by their intentionally misleading class warrior politicians. But things have now devolved to the point where average, hard-working people such as myself are being offered as examples of people who are, for lack of a better word, lucky.

And I want to be perfectly clear about this. Whether the Fedrule Govmint gives the “less fortunate” the (free?) health care plan they are clamoring for or not, I am far from being more fortunate, and even farther from being lucky. I have what I have because at every critical juncture throughout my misspent life, I have made some good decisions. I’ll not bore you with the many corroborating details, let’s just suffice it to say that I’m smart, I have multiple employable skills (not one) and I’m physically capable and then some, i.e., highly employable.

So, if there’s something you want, or something you feel you desperately need, do not be so completely stupid as to consider me one of life’s winners via a lucky rabbit’s foot. Because to do so is more insulting to me than you could ever imagine. Borderline fightin’ words, them is.

All of which is a reaction, but not a direct response to something I read this morning at The Snap Lac Political Letter.

Well, I suppose it is a direct response to Dave's outburst, but it’s meant less as a response to Dave as it is a response to an unresponsive, out-of-control government.

EDITOR’S NOTE: To all of those right wing Republican loudmouths who have their health care, have their singular decent jobs and say people like the single mom/student I talked to should work harder and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, I say GO F**K YOURSELF with a jagged object.

Dave, Dave, Dave! Wowie zowie!

Don't be going all 'town hall' on us, buddy.

David, I’m shocked. Honestly, I'm concerned. The foul language is way out of character for you, and I was stunned to find it at your site. I can’t say I’m offended, but I would like to try being offended for once. Hell, man! Everybody else is doing it, going out of their way to be offended by practically everything they see, hear, feel or touch.

Honestly, I used to be like that. I used to demonstratively say that people should do as I had once done, that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps (whatever those are). Follow the logic.

While mine is no compelling success story worthy of a Time magazine cover, I did escape the breeding ground for convicted criminals, a career in welfare and premature death completely unscathed. Basically, I started at the bottom and worked my way up into the middle there somewhere. And the ascent began when the government provided me with some free schooling after I also escaped high school somewhat intact. Yes, I escaped poverty, and I’ve had nothing but good jobs and good benefits ever since.

But before we go lashing out at hardscrabble, average folks who lean to the right, I think we need to realize what the biggest difference is between then and now, the biggest difference between America in 1979 and Amerika is 2009.

As far as I’m concerned, the difference is that, 30 years ago, good-paying jobs were much more plentiful than they are now. 30 years ago, that woman that Dave interviewed would have probably gotten by by working a full-time job and possibly a part-time job. And she might even have had access to some basic, rudimentary benefits.

But in this era of free trade agreements, with our manufacturing base having been systematically destroyed, and with illegal aliens filling an estimated 10 million construction jobs, employment opportunities of the well-paying, well-compensating variety are few and far between. In my opinion, herein lies the heart of our problems. If we all had good jobs, this health care debate would either not be taking place, or it would be much, much less of a problem and for a far smaller segment of the population. If we all had good jobs, the rest of it would probably fall into line.

Sadly, these days, people are reduced to working jobs they would have never, ever even considered taking just a few years ago. Sadly, people are forced to work, two, three, even four jobs when one or two would have done nicely just a decade ago. And until those 535 jackasses-plus two in Washington D.C. get this through their fat, delusional heads, the middle class will continue to work harder and harder and longer and longer while it continues to slide into the abyss that is poverty.

I have been a restaurant manager, a warehouse manager, a CDL truck driver and a pest control professional specializing in termites. I did a lengthy stint as a shirt and tie management type, but I eventually came to the inescapable conclusion (at least for me) that it’s better to be a grunt. But no matter what job I had at any given time, in management or otherwise, the local, state and especially the federal government made it harder to profitably operate any of those businesses every step of the way.

And if I got into making lengthy supportive arguments for that claim, this circumlocution of mine would likely encompass all of 20,000 words. And nobody wants that.

This is my opinion of what’s at work here. The federal government stands in the way of industry at every available turn, and then it opines at great length as to how best create untold numbers of lucrative jobs for Americans. It’s a bad joke, and it isn’t funny. Namely, it’s an unending circle-jerk.

Our current crop of “leaders” have incrementally made villains of all of this country’s last-remaining industries in the eyes of average folks who want only to earn a decent living and enjoy a mostly nondescript life. They are teaching us to hate the hand that could possibly feed us, if only the government would allow it to. Trust me, not a single American capable of cognizant thought would be bitching about what their CEO made last year if they were happy with their job, happy with their pay and content with their benefits. You know, satisfied with their lives.

I liken this to being a restaurant manager. Everything starts with sales. You need sales. You need to drive sales. Costs can be controlled. But without sales, everything becomes harder and harder to control. Every little expense becomes critical and ill-wanted. But with sales on the plus side versus last year, everything becomes a bit more doable. And with sales booming, life is good from the manager’s standpoint. Oh, and good for the employees, too.

Now, if we all had good jobs, sales if you will, every aspect of our lives would be easier to control. We could afford health care and what have you. But without earnings (see sales), every little expense becomes critical and ill-wanted. And the big expenses become real crushers. Real game-changers.

In my opinion, this government health care talk is another glaring example of Washington D.C. trying yet again to fix a problem it alone created. By way of it’s own policies, it allowed our jobs to wither and die on the vine, and all of the needed benefits that came with them. And now, lo and behold, here comes the government and…get this...it’s here to help.

And while all of this class envy stuff is being further whipped up, and while Americans have been duped into thinking that “big” industry is evil and bad and not trustworthy like the government is, I’ll stick with the principle that has guided most of everything I have done throughout my working life: If it’s good for my employer, it’s probably good for me.

Anyway, I think what Americans need by the boatload is good jobs that reasonably compensate hard-working, dedicated people. And while we spend all of this time and effort on arguing how best to acquire what we can ill-afford…health care, we’d all be better served by demanding that our flailing government get out of the way of job creation, and stop taxing every available dollar out of our economy.

It’s simple. And god knows, I like simplicity. Jobs first, health care second.

And them’s my thoughts on Economics 101.

We need jobs, you 535-plus two jackasses!

Later

Editor’s note: Dave, give me a buzz on the cell thingy.