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Bridges to Nowhere, Trickling Up & Seeing
BlackIt can get overwhelming these days listening to what should be done to stimulate the economy. Overall, it's an opportunity to become more “holistic” or consistent with our founding ideals by putting more we, or us into the U.S.
Looking out for number one has given us an approach to determining public policy that leaves us with winners and losers. Building “bridges to nowhere” are common, yet our representatives take an oath to uphold the Constitution that says, “promote the general welfare.”
Government's concern, after all, is public policy. That's what they deal with. This doesn't mean making society more important than our rights and freedom to make individual choices or to pursue our brand of happiness. Their work ought to be about controlling systems—not people; and systems that work for people in the public interest, not for special interests.
I think this is what mathematician John Nash, awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics and focus of A Beautiful Mind , was saying. His ideas challenged and added to economic icon Adam Smith's philosophy. “Winning” is about doing what works for both the individual and the group—not simply promoting the individual's interests.
It's interesting to look at the bailout with this in mind. Who is approaching it from the perspective of this working for you and me? Who are the ones building bridges to nowhere?
If we approach the bailout from the perspective that we need to insure or reimburse derivatives—creative ways to get rich without creating anything real, i.e., jobs or goods—we really have a problem. The amount of money involved—worldwide—is just too overwhelming.
Helping financial institutions fix the costs of their greed that way is unworkable. Some countries have nationalized their banks, not willing to give more money to the money handlers who couldn't manage or handle it. We obviously need to add stability and control a sector that has shown it can't control itself.
Don't forget that there were controls in place at one time in the U.S. that prevented banks from creating such instruments. Those laws were changed and can be again.
If we focus on creating jobs and opportunities, we are not simply throwing good money after bad. First we need to challenge and throw out the idea of “trickle-down economics.”
I think everyone but “trickle-downers” know—and just about all of us have been there at one time or another—the place where nearly everything that comes in goes right back out again. Living from paycheck to paycheck means spending about everything you have.
Giving jobs and assistance to those people means money is circulated in many directions, not to decorate a corporate office.
The trickle-down theory says that giving tax cuts to those who already have money will allow them to create new business and jobs. But doing it that way, we may find—as with the bankers and automakers—that they aren't spending it like the government thinks they will.
Wouldn't it make more sense to give them tax cuts when they create new businesses instead? Now we simply hope they might discover they have extra cash and being entrepreneurs will do what comes naturally and start or expand a businesses.
If we're promoting the general welfare, shouldn't we be trickling up? At the very least, shouldn't government focus in that direction?
At the present time, few entrepreneurs are going to start new businesses unless the government is stimulating in that direction. Why? Because people aren't buying. Give them jobs and money.
Makes you wonder about the economic wisdom that comes from our best and brightest. Puts an MBA from Harvard in a different light for me.
MBAs were taught that by their gurus that the successful business reduced labor costs as much as possible. Manufacture everything in Mexico or Asia. Then everyone did.
They forgot about customers who might buy their products. Could it be people in Mexico and Asia making a dime or two an hour?
Maybe MBA doesn't stand for Master of Being Aware.
I think Nash, who was turned down by Harvard, would say this reflects looking from the perspective that says if I do only what's good for me, it's also good for society—and not actually asking what would happen if all manufacturers did it. They were seeking an economic advantage. They forgot or ignored the societal impact. People are not included in their business models.
They were also taught and forgot that when someone takes a risk, the failure is theirs and they would suffer consequences. Who pays and where you draw that line is our challenge now.
The argument that we should be careful of is the one that encourages myopic self-reliance. I have nothing against self-reliance. If the demographic that reads The Light Connection didn't believe in that already we would never question the medical establishment or make our health our concern, getting second opinions and proactively making choices based on the best information available to us. We would not be embracing alternative energy, growing or buying healthy, non-pesticide grown food or collecting rainwater. We would not look at different views and approaches to spirituality, we would simply follow the leader. We would not question.
The value of self-reliance is not the issue. It's being able to look beyond our own interests—giving up self-righteousness for some—and noticing that people who do pay their mortgage can still be affected when other homes are being foreclosed on around them. Some may be doing the right things and others, foolish things, but we are connected whether we like it or not. It's not in our best interests to have more and more people living in the streets.
The government changed the game so people with no equity could buy, people saw that as an opportunity to improve themselves—recent history showed that home values always go up—and lenders were only too happy to make deals. So whom do you blame? Who pays for this?
If we don't stop foreclosures, then all of us/US.
It should be obvious we need jobs here in this country. That's how I judge the stimulus bills.
The SD Union-Tribune, however, in a backwards perspective blamed the Great Depression on those against world trade. They warned us about getting too pro-American in our buying habits.
Well, yes—after stockholders at that time lost $40 billion, banks failed or stopped lending, many businesses failed and everyone stopped buying. Unemployment rose and then a tariff on foreign imports was passed. So the tariff did it? That's a new way to look backwards in history. The last thing caused it?
Then, as now, it also had something to do with the creative financing and rules for mass destruction that encouraged overextended credit.
Not buying American shouldn't really be a concern. What do we make beside soldiers? That's what we export.
At a time when we should be looking at why we are in Afghanistan— what winning looks like, would be a start—instead, we can't afford to reduce our military spending.
That's what we do. That's our industry. We need those jobs.
We also need to rebuild the economy of the U.S. for all of us—not people who trickle down on us and export jobs. Hey, if world trade is consistent with creating jobs here great, if not, we ought to look again. We just can't be a service economy and simply wait on each other or the rich and be consistent with the principles of our society—a middle class comes with that territory.
The opportunity to create a whole new economy based on self-sufficiency and alternative energy production is real—and waiting for more stimulus than a tax credit for putting up a few solar panels.
At a time when the government is feeling their way around for solutions, what better time to tell them how we want it?
Most of us know that we can shift our perspective and focus. We can dream and attract to us. Creating and discovery is our nature. It also remains wise to look both ways before crossing the street, right? We need to know what's coming and prepare—and we can't think it's going to be fixed the way we'd really like without us.
Thankfully we can look to the wisdom of the ages to find direction and sound advice. I found this.
“But good things can be found around
In spite of all the sorrow
If you see black
You can't look back
You can't look front
You cannot face tomorrow.”
So sayeth the Jefferson Airplane in their song “She Has Funny Cars.” Not just Hummers, they created great lyrics. Maybe things will get better when Detroit's not creating such funny cars.
Don't see black. Have a Great Month,
Steve
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