Jobs - The American Future

In the recent article, "Jobs - Have They Become the American Myth?", we learned that the expense of holding inventory is being avoided by most businesses - and employees in the United States, unlike China and India, have become inventory. Why is this important? Because, on the other side of the globe are China, India and other emerging nations. Most Americans mistakenly think their economic situation is unrelated to China. Americans should be asking, “How do China and India figure as a serious competitors in the world economy and how does that affect me?”

China is both a serious and a potentially dangerous competitor. The most important economic reason is that China has millions and millions of laborers. Almost half of its 300+ million farmers are under-employed labor, not actually needed to work the land, according to the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. There are around 80+ million more redundant workers in government and government enterprises, not to mention another 100+ million squatting in the coastal regions looking for work, all trying to survive. And what about the soon-to-be employable Chinese youth? A quarter of the Chinese population is under the age of fifteen, representing another 500-million new workers waiting in the wings. None of this discussion of China takes into account the human resources of India and other emerging nations.

Assuming an 8% annual economic rate of growth, it will take China about 30 years, assuming 4% annual productivity growth, before it would exhaust this huge pool of unemployed. Can the United States compete with those labor costs for the next 30 years? Not in our wildest dreams! Where do you think the “jobs” will be - where will consumer goods and weaponry be manufactured over the next 30 years? Where will your waffle maker and toaster be manufactured? China and India, of course! If you doubt even for a minute, visit any retail merchandiser in the United States and check each appliance and article of clothing for their origin of manufacture.

Politicians tell you not to be concerned! The United States will still have many jobs. What they don't tell you, either out of ignorance or malice, is that those jobs will be temporary positions. The future holds far fewer jobs for Americans, regardless of individual educational achievement. Predictably, the only real jobs that can lead to measurable wealth will become the province of the elite, and they will be intensely coveted, particularly those with tenure such as "professor" or "congressman." Significant barriers to entry are being erected by the incumbents in those "jobs" as you read this article.

Those among us who are considered less qualified by the elite will predictably clamor for even more income and wealth redistribution. The government’s roster of Americans dependent on income redistribution will continue to grow exponentially. Government dependency has already become typical rather than the exception. More and larger definable groups have begun competing openly and ruthlessly for available taxpayer-subsidized handouts.

Congressmen, consumed absolutely with self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement and power over their fellow citizens, continue to demonstrate they do not have the vision, intellect, ethics, statesmanship, or the will to redirect a nation careening out of economic and social control. From their point of view, everything is as it should be. They rule, we serve. The reality is simple and painfully brutal: your education, your employability and your standard of living in coming years is solely your responsibility, unless you are willing to clean swimming pools or flip burgers while the government augments your meager existence. It would be incredibly wise, but uncharacteristic, for our nation's youth to wake up while the coffee is still warm enough to smell it.

In our modern “global economy,” Americans must quickly come to understand that have to compete with every other nation’s labor as a cost of doing business, from Mexico to China. If an American citizen hopes to earn 10 times as much as an Indian and 50 times as much as a Chinese, he is going to have to produce 10 times or 50 times as much as his competitors in India and China, of equal or better quality, or his job is going to move offshore. Only Rip Van Winkle is unaware that millions of jobs have already fled America to foreign shores as a result of excessive federal and state taxation, burdensome regulation by government administrative agencies (e.g., OSHA, EPA), runaway litigation, personnel benefits which include the cost of healthcare, and employee unions.

Is there one industry in the United States today that can leverage the needed productivity in the coming years? Not likely. Even the U.S. airline industry is on the verge of widespread bankruptcy. The automotive industry, led by Ford Motor Company is in close pursuit. Ford executives are arguably engaged in a form of intentional and self-inflicted corporate suicide, not unlike Jonestown.

What would be necessary to revitalize the American economy quickly enough that it will matter?

Congressmen, those who have the temerity to call themselves our elected representatives, but have forgotten that they are Americans first and foremost, would have to join the team. All employers, with the support of the nation’s citizenry, would have to create a “Team America” initiative not unlike the Kennedy space initiatives and NASA of the 1960’s. All Americans would have to commit to invest massive sums into new equipment (capital investment), vocational and technical training, and invigorate retro-style education solely grounded in mathematics, sciences and focused solely on student excellence. In the interim, free-loaders and race-baiters would have to forego hundreds of billions of dollars of taxation destined for pork projects and income redistribution for political purposes. Not likely ....

What is more likely is that Congress will employ their only other (three-phase) alternative available, (1) cutting your benefits, (2) dramatically increasing your taxes, and (3) undertaking intense social engineering. Their intent would be even more redistribution of power, influence, jobs, education, income, housing, transportation, private property and health care by accelerating socialism and redistributing what wealth still remains. All this will be necessary in order to support those citizens who long ago stopped working with the permission of Congress and state legislatures, and illegal aliens who are willing to work but contribute nothing.

Congress’ choice of the redistribution alternative, in lieu of the “Team America” approach, will cynically be calculated to ensure that politicians, at every level of government, protect and expand their own financial security in the lifestyle of a Hollywood movie star, rock or sports superstar. This they will accomplish by first legislating themselves a special elite status that no other American enjoys, including specialized medical care and exclusive retirement provisions. If that were not enough, Congress has already enacted their own unique ability to solicit, accumulate and keep massive amounts of personal wealth from campaign contributions upon their retirement. The provisions of Congressional retirement, were they to become widely known, would gag most Americans.

There is always a point of peak efficiency given existing technology. Just as there is elasticity in maximizing total revenue, so too is there elasticity in both taxation and income redistribution, which is why, when marginal tax rates are lowered, tax revenues increase. The same concept applies inversely to redistribution entitlements. At some point, excessive prices, taxes, and entitlements all become destructive to maximizing national ‘total GNP’ and economic growth.

Until decision makers are reigned in, and Congressmen once again become citizen legislators who are limited in tenure and not permitted to profit from elected office, decisions from Congress (and courts) will continue to focus on protecting their own self-interests, as a ruling elite class, at the sacrifice of all other Americans. If the economic engine in America is running low on fuel, clearly Congress isn't focused on filling the fuel tank, i.e., making any more fuel (real jobs) or creating better fuel (job training and new technologies). They demonstrate on a daily basis that the only fuel tank that matters is their own.

Red State Patriot would suggest that all Americans get out of debt as soon as possible and be very grateful if you still have a “job.” Be even more grateful if you still have a job two years from now. Hopefully the graphic accompanying this article, as you study it, will become self-explanatory.

Red State Patriot

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Posted August 10, 2007 11:25 AM
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