Unemployment

The Problem Is…

Unemployment.  Well, while you’ve got some extra time on your hands you may as well use it productively.  Spend some of it examining the big picture and what your roll is in it.  How did we get to this point?  What have we done about it?  What  can we do about it?

We got to this point by sitting on our thumbs while our politicians paved the road for big business to move our jobs overseas.  We got there by tolerating illegal immigrants coming in and taking our jobs for less money so that even when we can find work it doesn’t pay a liveable wage.  We financed the exodus of our jobs by buying foreign made goods because they were cheaper.  Just to save a buck.  Adding to the snowball effect so that in order to compete a company now has to ship the jobs to a foreign country or pay pitifully low wages.

To big business the bottom line is the bottom line.  The more money they make, the happier they are.  They don’t really care if we make any as long as they get a share of what we do make.  This may at first seem a little short sighted.  If no one is making any money big business can’t make any because nobody can afford their products.  The fact is that the ultra-rich control big business which controls the government.  The ultra-rich don’t have to worry.  They’re going to be alright regardless of what happens.

Something I’ve never been able to understand is that level of greed.  I don’t begrudge the wealthy their money.  It’s a fact of  life that there are always going to be rich people and there will always be poor people.  I do think, though, that most of us should fall comfortably somewhere in between.  Once you have enough money to do anything you want and buy anything you want any time you want what is the point of having more?  Come on.  Share the wealth.  Americans used to have the highest standard of living in the world.  I liked it that way.  It’s not that way anymore.

One thing we can do about it is spend some of our time creating and implementing ways of browbeating our politicians into submission.  To get them to do the right thing and take the steps necessary to return our economy to where it should be, to restore the American dream before America becomes just a dream (or a memory).  Until they get that done, buy American.  The job you save may be your own.  Avoid buying foreign made goods.  This may require learning the difference between what we want and what we actually need.  If things keep going the way they are we are going to learn this whether we like it or not.  The difference is that if things keep going the way they are we may never be able to get what we want.  Let’s keep our freedom of choice.

We can also spend some of our time learning how to do things for ourselves.  Anything we can make for ourselves is something we don’t have to buy and the raw materials probably came from somewhere in this country keeping our American brothers  employed.  Nobody can do everything for themselves but everyone can do something, so you may want to get to know your neighbors.  They may be able to do something you can’t, in return for which you can do something for them.  Once people start depending on each other then they start becoming tolerant of one another.  The next thing you know they’ll start sticking together.  Can you see where this is heading?

The thing that has always made America great is it’s resources and it’s most important resource is it’s people.  If we can get together and stay that way there’s nothing we can’t do.  It just takes a little extra effort.

Just my opinion.