Our country is seriously troubled by the fact that unemployment is running about 10 percent. But if “you” are one without a job, and you want one and need one, joblessness for “you” is a 100 percent problem.
What do we need for “recovery”?
Economic currents vary, with job and earning opportunities increasing and decreasing because of many factors. But part of our unemployment today is a result of our defiance of many basic facts of economics.
Good jobs and good pay occur because people need and desire products and services that some enterprising people provide at prices that potential customers can afford to pay.
Frankly, in many respects, we have simply priced ourselves out of many markets. In some cases, we have expected “government” to do too much “for us,” with the result that government has taken too much of our potential buying power away from us through too-high taxes.
The U.S. auto industry once was the “thermometer” that indicated how “hot” our national economy was. That was because the American people loved cars, wanted new and attractive models, and could afford to buy them. The U.S. “Big Three” manufacturers supplied them — and jobs.
Other companies supplied the necessary components — steel, rubber, paint, upholstery and all the rest.
But in many ways, the American car industry has priced itself out of the market, inviting able foreign competition.
What has happened to the auto industry has happened to some other industries, too.
Meanwhile, government has taken too much in taxes, reducing Americans’ personal buying power, adding many costly regulations, hindering markets, reducing job opportunities. That surely is an oversimplification of a very complex industrial and economic environment, but it suggests our basic problem.
We want solutions. Unfortunately, serious problems do not invite quick and easy answers. But it should be obvious that we are demanding too much from government, paying too much to government in high taxes (but still running trillions of dollars in red ink) and hampering free enterprise job creation — delaying solutions.
Fortunately, we are not “doing everything wrong.” We still are the richest nation in the world, with more people having a really high standard of living. But obviously, don’t we all need to make some “adjustments” to resume our booming American free enterprise success?
Isn’t this a good time for us to face some uncomfortable economic realities, reduce some of our defiance of economic facts and achieve solutions?
What has gone wrong and what needs to go right really aren’t “mysteries” or “secrets.” We have had problems before. Intelligent free enterprisers have addressed and solved them. The challenge now is for us to face facts and “do the right things” to cure our ills.
That can’t be quick or easy. But can’t “American ingenuity” and “real free enterprisers” — with “limited government” — overcome our adversities?