Unfortunately millions of workers have simply not kept their skills and knowledge - their competencies - sufficient to be competitive in securing the jobs that do exist. The workforce that is needed now requires more and more intellectual competence and less and less physical competence. Now throw in our failing education system; along with the factories which are becoming more and more robotic and technically oriented, and the results are predictable. The physical skills that humans have had are less and less in demand. When robots becomes cheaper than employing people, and what human labor is necessary becomes cheaper in foreign places, the results are clear.
It’s also clear that America needs innovation & new industries (the bedrock of capitalism & the free enterprise system), rather than relying on the ones that supported the rise of the middle class in the 1950s and 1960s. Biotechs and Renewable energies are certainly two that offer promise. But why do we not see the rise of these new industries from our private sector?
Over the years unions have elevated the pay scale of workers to unsustainable levels. The most mundane job now carries a high wage price tag to prospective employers. Non union employers traditionally pay less than their union counter parts but are forced to raise wages as well in an effort to retain their employees. All aspects of our lives are affected as companies raise prices to maintain an acceptable profit margin.
The real trouble began when the general populous discovered banks would lend absurd amounts of money against inflated, panic purchased residential real estate to anyone who said they could pay it back without proof of income. We quickly found ourselves in a situation where even union wages could not keep pace with rising home prices. It had to end somewhere.
The private sector will begin expanding, investing and hiring when it becomes confident that it can predict, with some level of accuracy, what economic conditions will be for the next year or so. What they are seeing, instead, is the threat of higher taxation, greater government interference through regulation, the unknown costs of Obamacare, Cap and Trade, and immigration reform that will turn millions of formerly illegal aliens into Democrat voters, plus the threat of pro-labor union legislation. The jobs aren't coming back any time soon.
Instead, State and Federal Governments are finding themselves coming up short in their budgets but instead of introducing or enacting legislation to stimulate the private sector, there is a constant attempt to figure out ways to extract more revenue from the dwindling few who still have the ability to pay and the ideas are bordering on insanity. There is no real effort to "tighten belts" or cut inefficient or wasteful spending....especially when it comes to "pork barrel" legislation and passage of "entitlement reforms."
People in my age and wage bracket are concerned about our golden years, our children's future and where this Country is heading. Most of us do not like what we see and feel betrayed by our elected officials. Many feel there is little we can do to stop it and are taking steps to protect what we have left.
YES, we need to get the Obama Admin out of office.
YES, we need to get most if not all the incumbents in Congress either out of office,... but we also need to see some unified leadership to take us in the right direction with a specific platform of goals to set our sights on!
First and foremost:
Adoption of the Fair Tax can and will correct much of this injustice through a visible transformation of our tax system which is not only "FAIR" but will rightfully distribute our "PAYING" tax base to include all proper parties.....including former tax dodgers, illegals, criminals, visitors, etc. while re-vitalizing our economy through the elimination of most business taxation thus enabling new job creation and a reduction of prices/inflation.
This, along with a sensible plan of spending cuts, elimination of pork barrel legislation, and common sense REFORMS (not elimination of) of government entitlement programs such as "unemployment insurance", "social security", welfare including health care such as medicare/medicaid, and outrageous pension plans. We certainly need some of these programs, but they need to become sensible, affordable and coupled with a re-newed sense of individual responsibility.
That is about as cheerfully optimistic as I can get.
