We leave 2009 with a bad economy – and we enter 2010 hoping the new year’s economy will be better for all of us.
We are not just “victims” of economics, nor are we the “masters” of it. But we can do, and not do, many things to affect our economic well-being.
We begin 2010 with a lot of unfortunate unemployment. It’s terrible for anyone who really wants a job, who can perform a service or produce goods, but doesn’t have a way to earn a good living. In Chattanooga, our employment rate is better than in many other places – wih prospects for more jobs to be created here, not just at the big, new Volkswagen plant, but also at other new and expanding old businesses.
That’s good news for us locally.
But we are doing lots of “bad things” nationally. It just does not make dollars or sense for us to expand federal government, tax ourselves too much – and still spend a trillion dollars in the red, adding to our $12.1 trillion national debt.
It’s totally irresponsible. It inescapably will have painful results.
There are cycles of prosperity and recession. But they are not “automatic.” We cause most of them, positively or negatively, by what we do or don’t do, by good judgment or bad judgment, by enterprise or lack of it.
Our free enterprise system is the economic system that has made the United States and the American people economically the most prosperous in the world, with the highest living standard – with great personal freedom.
Knowing that, why do we hamper the system that has worked so well?
Our government doesn’t produce prosperity. It is designed to provide “traffic rules” that minimize adverse collisions, so we may enjoy our freedom and the prosperity it can produce.
Our federal government – and some state, county and city governments – are spending too much.
As Social Security cushions the economics of many of our older people, it’s headed inevitably to going broke, promising to pay out more than it is taking in.
Other federal spending programs face equally tragic futures.
And as we wish to provide needed medical care for everyone, the current proposals for “government-dictated medicine” are threatening to make us both “economically sick” and “medically sick,” as some defy both economic principles and medical common sense.
Personal economic well-being – for us individually, for our companies and for our country – obviously requires economic productivity to create wealth, generate taxes and assure a good economy for the benefit of all. Will we defy the obvious economic rules – or use them to our mutual benefit in 2010?
The whole new year lies ahead! There will be challenges. How will we meet them – constructively, wisely, energetically, or otherwise?
The rules of economics are not simple. They are complex. But they are not unknown. Let’s use common sense, hard work and ingenuity to make 2010 an “economic boom year” for all Americans!