As I waste more time than I should listening to the pundits talking about the next Congress and what their agenda should be focused on, the same subject keeps coming up. It’s the budget deficit! Perhaps that deserves to be Number Two on the list. But the Number One priority is JOBS, and that’s one way to deal with the budget deficit. The more people employed, the more revenue brought in and the less unemployment benefits paid out. You can’t deal with the deficit unless you can employ America’s workforce!
RPO addressed this a year ago in an article: "How to turn The Economy around? It’s all about JOBS, stupid!" I’m not going to rehash what I said then, as all you have to do is to go back in the archives and read it. The last reported unemployment rate as of this date was November, 2010, which rose to 9.8%, which is the highest since April of this year. Add to that all those partially employed or have stopped looking for employment, and some believe the number jumps to 18%, which may still not be an accurate figure. The number given by the government for the unemployed is 15,119.000, but I suspect that number is lower, as we really don’t have any instrument to tell us the exact figure. The figure given as the total American work force is 154 million, or about half of the total population. That comes to 22% of our work force is unemployed. That number is conservative, as we continue to either loose jobs or maintain that level.
How do we get people back to work? The first problem is that the "old jobs" are not coming back, particularly in manufacturing. They’re gone! We have a work force that is schooled for the 20th Century and not for the 21st. Retraining our unemployed, as well as the work force in general is goal Number 1. Whatever emerges as out new Economy, will require computer skills. You need that just to work at Burger King! As the 99ers have been given another year of unemployment, we should consider that a provision of receiving extended unemployment benefits will require retraining all those who do not have computer skills. Unemployment benefits fall into the control of each state, so that the Federal Government can help here providing funding for the teachers, thus creating jobs for some. There is a particular age group from 50 to 65 who may not have these skills and this would benefit them the most. The obvious solution is improving our school system and bringing it into the 21st Century!
The government cannot create jobs! That’s up to private industry, and we have got them off their corporate asses. The problem is that with limited demand for good and services, they’re not creating new jobs. We are a consumer based society, and with uncertainty of The Economy, they are not going to spend for more that the necessities. What’s the answer? That’s the big question! One possible answer is a new Economy based on alternate energy. It is a problem we must face, so why not face it now and use it kick start the Economy. The government can help with tax credits and other incentives. The oil industry has had record profits and they will want to play a major part in alternative energy in order to remain in business. American entrepreneurship has made this country and the rest of the world has had to follow. That situation is changing. The government again can play a role with not only tax credits but with other incentives, that will get us on the road to recovery. Once we start creating new jobs, both private industry and the banks will jump in. Without a doubt, part of the new Economy will be Green, and we have to train our work force, so that they can fulfill the jobs in the US, rather than outsourcing to the rest of the world
The government can help on this problem, which is to force the banks to participate in home modifications, so we do not have a second housing crisis. The Obama Administration has said little and has done little on this subject. The banks only look at their balance sheet and refuse, in general, to participate. Be prepared for a second housing crisis! The Stimulus package failed to help create jobs, but it did save jobs. We should be looking a rebuilding America’s infrastructure, which is 50 years old and crumbling. We need to upgrade our highway system, the national electrical grid, rail and air. Our roads are crumbling as well as our bridges. The power grid for the country looks like it was built by Rube Goldberg! Our train service is still in 1950s. We have the worst rail program of all of the industrial nations in the world. Look what Europe and China have done! Our airways are a patch work of day by day survival. The air industry’s fleet is one of the oldest among our rival nations in this Global Economy. We are falling behind all of the industrial nations in the world. We’ve pissed trillions on two wars, which we’re still stuck in when we should have quickly dealt with Afghanistan and come home and spent the money here. If we dealt with these problems, we would create a Hell of a lot of jobs. The problem is that we’re broke now and it’s very unlikely that the government will or is able to invest funds to deal with these problems. Again, private industry has to step up, particularly for a national grid, air and rail. The government did not build the railroads in this country. Private companies did, as they vigorously competed with each other. We chose to underwrite the air industry after WW II, deciding to abandon rail service. I don’t have an answer, nor does anyone else. We don’t need a terrorist to cripple the country. Our infrastructure will!
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Tom C.