Plank 8, Foreign trade and the importance of being conservative

We live in a rapidly changing world. Technology is changing everything from how we live, how we work, to how we obtain our knowledge and entertain ourselves. And it is doing this at a pace that is highly accellerated (exponentially) from history. Everything around us is changing. Church attendance is into 60 years of steady decline, and young adults have no stomach for irrelevant religious dogma. They leave the church on graduation and never come back. (This is a tale strongly told by research.)

Our population demographics have changed to high percentages of Hispanics - and most people don't seem to mind that unless they are working next to a Spanish only speaking person or illegal immigrant. Our manufacturing cities in the North have become the Rust Belt as jobs have either migrated to the warmer southern climate or left our shores for foreign destinations. People in rural areas can't find adequate jobs - they have to go to nearby cities, which means that rural areas and former rural centers continue in over 70 years of decline.

Medicine has quickly changed in the last 50 years from a compassionate system to a money hungry for-profit system. Rapid medical advances have driven change and consumers have demanded more service. The result is that medical prices have increased at double-digit rates every year for over 20 years. To cope, insurance companies have dropped people, refused claims, and increasing insurance rates have driven those with business funded policies right off the roles. Medical insurance is not available to 40 million Americans - those are working class people who have to throw themselves on the mercy of the hospitals every time they cut their finger, or as many of them do, do without life saving medical service and prescriptions. If they get care, we all pay for their care through County taxes. Letting people suffer because we can't get control of medical spending is unconscionable. We have to get control of medical spending or everyone will be off the insurance roles and nobody will be able to afford medical care.

Once upon a time there was such a thing as job security and career growth. Companies have no loyalty anymore, shifting jobs here and there to get better production rates, and closing companies that don't "make enough" money, or often the company just acts as a "jobber" and closes when the current order for goods expires. Jobs and careers are difficult to find. Many young adults see their future as bleak and education as useless - they drop out of high school to the tune of over 6 million a year across the nation in cities and rural areas alike. (This is actually an improvement from the 1980s.) This is happening at a time when it takes higher education to get a job. You can work at McDonalds all your life, and never be able to afford an apartment, a TV, a marriage, or anything else. Today's good paying jobs require a minimum of a high school diploma and most often advanced training after high school.

Everyone complains continually about education, and the US lags behind other industrialized nations in math scores. The simple fact has been for over 30 years that you can give students self-paced computer studies and drop out rates are reduced by 20% and students learn better (featured TV news story recently in Shelbyville, IN). Bureaucracy fights change. All around us either change is happening quickly, or people and bureaucracies are fighting change - whether it is good or not.

During an age of constant change, where it seems like the earth is constantly shifting beneath your feet, people desperately need anchors to keep them grounded. That's a lot of what conservatism is about. It isn't just about saving money and keeping the government out of your back pocket and your affairs. It's about slowing change to the point that you can make sense of life and can count on things staying like they are for a while. It's necessary. It's vital.

Foreign trade is one example where a go slow approach would be much better. It's bad enough that companies send work overseas, but the government? There should be a clear course of action established for both corporations and government if they are going to make a move that eliminates jobs. They need to carefully consider how quickly they do this and what they can do to mitigate the damage to both the new country and the old. Many types of jobs kill off all local competition in foreign countries when they land on those shores. It's like Walmart landed - a large company with the power to stifle everything. But most importantly for us, our jobs are often eliminated by foreign trade deals, even if we do create some jobs by increasing exports. If a sector is going to be impacted, it needs to be mitigated with new industry and training first.

As a conservative, you have to know when to hold your cards, and when to play your cards. The cut, cut, cut politics which are popular at the moment, has thrown millions of people out of work both here and in Europe. Sure we saved money. Penny wise and pound foolish. Those same people who lost their jobs, school teachers, government employees, factory workers dependent on government orders, are all part of the people who order products from industry and keep our jobs going. Industry needed to be stimulated. As soon as the recession showed signs of fading, industry needed to get increases in consumer spending to bring the economy back. But Congressmen are standing in line to say, "cut, cut, cut," which is a popular mantra that means about as much as "I like Ike." Ike was very likeable, but saying it doesn't put butter on the table.

So our climb out of the recession is faltering, and maybe we will make it. There are some problems. Orders for goods from European quarters have been cut by EU nations, to save them money, which is strongly impacting our recession. Europe, which followed our lead, or arguably we followed it slash and burn budgeting, has never had as strong an economy as the US (Germany would be closest), and EU nations are backfiring and sputtering and a strong backlash to extreme cuts is growing. Guess what. Today the UK announced that it was back in recession, and blamed it on the harsh cuts in spending. If other European nations follow England into recession, we will also be pulled into that black hole.

You can't run around screaming, "Cut, cut, cut," like it's the only words you know and all the world's wisdom is contained in that one mantra. You have to know when to play your cards to save the nation and the world. The time has come to stop cutting and put people back to work. Easy illustration. You have a hole and a pile of dirt. The hole equals 10, which is the same as costs or budget. The pile equals eleven, which equals revenue. Revenue drops to eight. Now you don't have enough revenue to fill the hole. So you're going to do what, save yourself to prosperity by stealing from revenue and filling in the hole by... two? Four? How much? Nothing works. Filling the hole can't work if revenue lags spending. You have to increase revenue, even if it takes a small increase in spending, not by raising taxes, but by raising personal incomes. It's the only thing that works.

What I will do as President is understand what being a Conservative really means, work to increase jobs and personal revenue, and act to bring a more conservative approach to government and industry activity. I can dance conservative rings around the moderate Mitt Romney and any of the faded glories that almost ran. They are "Neo-conservatives," not true conservatives. They wouldn't know a true conservative if held up a sign. Vote for me, and tell that new Secret Service agent to quit watching me pee through his binoculars. Yeah, I was peeing through his binoculars... sorry, you're not supposed to have that kind of fun unless you go to Colombia. No disrespect intended, all in good fun.

Next: Plank 9, The war on drugs.

5   6   7

Or click a Page selection on the top menu.