Productivity Needed Rather Than Jobs

Unemployment is over 9% so there is a lot of talk about jobs. President Obama went so far as to give a speech before congress about his so called jobs plan. Despite all the talk the real problem is not so much a lake of jobs but lack productivity. The people know only one way to be productive and that is to get a job working for some else. However there is another option. Sadly this option is not be promoted by government officials and agencies. Even worst many government officials at all levels are actively attacking this option. Further more your local unemployment office will neither encourage or giving you credit for this option. It is an option they will never mention. Following this option may even bring you criticism from friends and family. That option is to go to work for yourself.

For some treason Governments are actively attacking working for yourself.  On the local level by business licenses which are a tax on projected earnings. Municipal governments have in some cases gone as far as to shutdown children’s lemonade stands for not having a business licenses. On the federal level Obama has attacked working for yourself with regulations and threatened tax increases if you succeed.

In some cases these attacks result from politicians that want as many people a possible dependent on them for their need and working for yourself breeds independence. In other cases it making sure big business supporters have ample desperate workers. Whatever the reason the result is a lot of untapped potential productivity among people and the additional jobs created by those would need help.

Now I grant you that not every one has what it takes to work for them selves but the number that has what it takes is much greater than the number of people who actually do it. Part of the problem is that when just starting out working for yourself means lots of work with little if any income for the effort.

The best way to start working for yourself is to find something you really love to do and find a way to get paid for it. That may sound unreasonable simple but it is the only thing that gets you through the period of lots of work and no pay.  If you have a hobby find a way to do make money and you are off to a good start working for yourself .

Dealing with Capitalism’s Dark Side

The are several ways capitalism’s dark side can be managed. They are government regulation, and fostering a moral business climate.

Government regulation is one way of dealing with business excesses, but the down side is that government regulations ten to grow. Also there always the danger of a developing cronyism where big, rich companies get the government to cause regulatory harm to their smaller competition. There is also the danger of politicians fostering regulations to help gain favor among certain voting blocks. Government regulations do serve as a legitimate check business excesses as long as they are few and small; the danger is the tendency for them to become many, big and destructive.

The best solution, though not necessarily the easiest to achieve is fostering a moral business climate. If the businesses in a given area have a strong sense of morality toward how they treat, employees, customers, and other business then little or no government regulation is need,

In practice minimal helpful government regulations that help smooth relationships; rather than complicate them; along with a moral business climate is most work able solution.

Dark Side of Capitalism

Sadly capitalism does have its danger. The problem is that the honest pursuit of profit in business can be over taken by greed. When this happens the results can be as bad as any totalitarian system, this takes two main form exploitation and cronyism.

Exploitation occurs when the owner and managers of a business stop seeing employees as people and starts seeing them only as resources to be used. This can take the form of unreasonably low wages with long hours and us safe working condition. The presents of any of these three in a job dose not exploitation make. A job may have low wages simply because the job is not worth much. Long hours are a necessity of many well paying jobs, and some work like mining is inherently dangerous. However it is combination of all three that add up to exploitation

The worst form of exploitation is the sweet shop where all three exist in abundance. Furthermore in the case of sweet shops workers are housed in company dormitories and forced to by necessities from an over priced company store. This condition reduces the workers to little more than slaves.

Cronyism is where business and government become closely related to the point where a business can use the government against competitors. This occurs when a prosperous business starts giving money to candidates for elected office to get favors in return. These favors some time take the form of favoritism in getting government contracts. However these favors often take the form of government regulation that helps put the favored business’ competition out of business or at least make it harder for them to compete.

The worst form of cronyism is a big business being bailed out by the government; while there smaller competitors are allowed to go out of business. This even worst when as in the case of the 2008 economic collapse the companies that got bailed out are the same companies that caused the problem to begin with.

While capitalism is not with out its problems it is still the best and freest economic system there is. With capitalism is the largest possible portion of a population can become prosperous. The United State is prime example of this where even in economic bad times the poorest among us are still among the richest people in the world.