A Practical Fix for the Economy

I may be a stupid redneck, but I do have some knowledge about economics. Working in the banking business for a time in my life certainly gave me some perspective, but it did not leave me an expert. Something I feel that I do have plenty of, and it could be a sign of my own folly that I feel this way, is horse sense. Yeah. Good, old fashioned common sense.

When I was studying all of the information I could get my hands on about the mortgage industry, I had an epiphany (hehe a fancy word for a redneck). I had been paying attention over the years, as I hope anyone reading this has, and noticed how jobs were slowly leaving this country. The main types of jobs that have left and continue to leave this nation were/are manufacturing jobs.

The basis for a strong economy in any nation is manufacturing. When a nation no longer produces products for domestic consumption or export, the economy will collapse. Just look at what happened in Russia when everything was based on weapons manufacturing. The economic infrastructure of the U.S.S.R. was garbage.

We are facing the same thing in this country, a collapse of our economic infrastructure. I don't buy into all of the convoluted explanations that the press is duped into believing. They are idiots, don't buy into their crap.

Anyway, in the same way that the Soviet infrastructure was tied heavily into their weapons manufacturing (which nobody bought and the weapons just piled up), we have created a stockpile of something ourselves. We have created a stockpile of credit based on non-existent money along with an economy that has slowly shifted to a reliance on intellectual property.

So we have essentially painted ourselves into a corner. Intellectual property eventually becomes obsolete or outdated, and it tends to be easily reproduced or improved upon outside of our own economy. In the meantime, double taxation on manufacturers, labor unions, etc, along with free trade have pushed our manufacturers out of this country. So we are left with a weak backing by manufacturing as opposed to what it was only 30 years ago in comparison.

So we add to all this our current education system. It is a system that is bent on making everyone the same. Those who stand out can be rewarded as long as they don't stand out too far. The kids who are inventive, active, and high-spirited, are drugged into submission, their minds and spirits are dulled, and the inventors, innovators, and leaders of tomorrow are tamed into being another cog in the machine, thus causing the major edge that the U.S. has always had over the rest of the world to be dulled.

Albert Einstein in today's society would never have been able to do what he did when he was alive. George Washington? He would have been too religious for politics and would have been considered an enemy of the environment for chopping down cherry trees.

Well, I think you get my point. Innovation, manufacturing, pioneer spirit. All things that are looked down upon and pushed aside for the sake of intellectual property. The Romans did the same thing. Where are they today?

Here is my fix:
The companies that are failing. Let them fail. There is no such thing as being too big to fail. Of course that DOES put people out of work, but here is the thing, people being out of work, being desperate, is what creates necessity, and necessity is the mother of invention. A lot of people are wasting away working crap jobs and making the money to get by. They can't shine, they don't know that they can. The worst economic times in this country have sometimes produced some of the best, most innovative products the world has seen.

Change our education system. Not every child is the same. They can't be made into automatons with standardized tests and some idiotic notion of what leaving no child behind is. If we truly want to leave fewer children behind, then we MUST allow competition in our schools, but not in a way that most people think of when they hear that.

Starting at the sixth or seventh grade level, aptitude tests should be given to children to learn their talents, and not just in academics. Not all children will go to college, so what is the point of preparing ALL of the children for college? It is an idiotic concept and I have no idea how we fell into such a trap. Years ago, a boy could leave school and follow a trade if he chose to. It led to more productivity as a nation, for sure.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want children to leave school, but what about the majority of the kids who really don't use a college education after they have one? Why push kids through something that is a waste of years of their time? Why not give them alternatives in school. Let them choose something different. Let them take tests at a junior high school level so that they can make a choice to go down a different path besides academics?

I can answer that easily. Two main reasons come to mind. Number one, the less paranoid reason, is that education is a big business now. Some of the wealthiest organizations in this country are places of higher learning, and they still get government funding. A LOT of money is made in education.

The more paranoid answer is that the indoctrination process takes college. The liberal aspect of education is in the majority, but they don't control all of the public schools in all of the towns across the nation. They do have a strangle-hold on higher education. The purpose of higher education isn't always about career choices and educating tomorrow's work force, it is as much about indoctrination as anything else. In a university setting, you can get the kids without a daily influence by the parents.

So, let the countries fail, fix education, and FINALLY, open up this nation to better manufacturing opportunities. This is probably the most important. To have better manufacturing opportunities we have to:
1. Fix the tax code to stop double taxation of manufacturers.

2. Fair tariff practices. If we are exporting goods into a country and they charge us a tariff, we need to charge them too.

3. Bust the unions. NO, don't eliminate the unions, but bust them up and remove the national politics from the equation. Put the union members back in control of the unions.

4. Fix the patent process

5. Have more tradesmen. That means more trade education for our youth. This is one of the most important factors because without it, we have nobody to employ.

Hey, look at it this way, computer programmers and bankers are going to need somewhere to work soon. Lets bring the manufacturing back.