How to fix the economy (or things I thought about while my Internet connection was down)

Note: This rant is only a stream of consciousness put into words. In reality, it means nothing and has no redeeming value. So, continue reading only if you are secure in your own concept of what is real and what is imagined.

Okay, so we are spending more on mandatory outlays than we are bringing in with the current tax structure. And, we obviously cannot do without discretionary outlays such as military expenditures and government workers. Our government cannot run on automatic.

So, what to do? What to do?... Well, we could cut social security. Nah, that won't work. We could cut medicare. No, that's a non-starter. And, medicaid is untouchable for obvious reasons.

In other words, we need to either increase taxes unilaterally or increase economic activity by producing more dynamic and salable goods and services which automatically generate increased tax revenues.

Or, we could do both. A first step is to increase taxes on everyone by ten percent. That means everyone, millionaires and low income alike. So, if someone is currently allowed to skip taxes altogether, now his government benefits would be reduced by ten percent. And, if a millionaire has taxable income of ten million dollars, he would automatically pay an extra million dollars in taxes.

That part of the solution is easy. People tend to accept mandates that can be defended as needed and are also applied equally across the whole population. We cannot allow anyone to dodge this new tax. If some people are spared from this mandate, a large percentage of the remaining population will tend to refuse to participate or attempt to create chaos and/or discord as a way to express disagreement.

The other part of the solution, increasing economical activity to produce increased governmental revenue, is a much more difficult task. For one thing, we must convince a considerable amount of the population to buy in to this idea. Many, many, of us have come to accept our lot in life and readily welcome what the government gives us. And, as a consequence, those of us who embrace this view will tend to continually vote for politicians who will tell us that our free ride will last forever. This way of thinking and the effects of this mindset produce an infinite loop of irrational thinking that is difficult to refute or change in any significant fashion.

Another example of applying irrational thinking to economic matters is the notion that many of us believe that we can grasp the American dream of a comfortable middle class life without having worked to master a marketable skill set which can set us apart in the job market. Just working hard is not enough. We must have skills which are marketable and valuable to our employer. If we don't have these skills, we will tend to eventually fall to the lower levels of the economic stratum even if we work hard and show up for work every day. Let me give you a hypothetical example to strengthen this idea. A kid comes out of high school and luckily lands a job at an automotive assembly plant. This kid has no particular skills but works hard and can put bumpers on Chevrolet Suburbans all day. Because he shows up on time and he works hard, he believes that he deserves a hefty raise every year. After some time, the kid has grown into a middle aged man who is now, with the assistance of his labor union, making a salary equivalent to a college professor or a commercial architect. However, eventually, the automobile company declares bankruptcy because management must increase the price of their product to the point that consumers can't afford to buy it.

This person has lost his job, not because of his unwillingness to work hard, but because the economic system allowed him to garner an unsustainable wage which was not backed up by any marketable skill set.

So, what should this kid have done to protect himself and thus allow him to continue to be a productive member of society who feels pride in his work ethic and who can readily switch jobs if a corporate collapse occurs. Well, he should jump at the chance to work at the plant. But, he shouldn't feel satisfied with mastering the minimal skill requirements for installing bumpers. Once he establishes himself as a valuable and able bumper installer, he should immediately request both a more demanding job and also the requisite formal education needed to do that job to the best of his ability. And, if that job requires a college degree, he should immediately enroll in classes and attempt to get that degree. If the job requires him to attend a trade school at night or on the weekends, he should grab that opportunity immediately. Trust me, an employer will always jump at the chance to help an employee become an invaluable asset. The boss is always looking for those who are willing to improve themselves.

The kid must always keep his best interests in mind also. He should want to acquire training which will help his current company but also push his training in the direction of developing marketable and transferrable skill sets. So, if and when the auto plant closes, he can easily find another job in the auto industry or in another type of work environment which can utilize his acquired skill sets.

The bottom line is that we, as a nation, need to instill the desire to be a productive and skilled into the heart and soul of every American citizen. And, we must richly reward those who buy into this mind set. How do we do this? For one thing, we, as individuals, can choose to lead by example. We can try to be the best we can be by working hard and studying hard to acquire marketable skill sets. We will be rewarded for that effort and we will set the standard for those of us who need to see how to get ahead and understand that a productive and diligent society can overcome economic downturns by outworking and outthinking our competitors both here and abroad.

To me, this is our only solution. We must convince our compatriots that we can only be proud of our lives when we are productive and contribute to society rather than live off of the government dole. Of course, there are many among us who cannot contribute as much as others because of physical and/or psychological anomalies which render us incapable of handling a normal job. We must help these people and we must not hold any animosity toward them. In fact, we should feel a sense of deep pride that we can help those who cannot help themselves.

And, for those among us who choose not to contribute as much as we could even though we have no legitimate reason for choosing this path other than apathy or a feeling of entitlement based on perceived sins or slights from the past, we need to instill a sense of responsibility to be a contributor, rather than a taker. But, dear readers, that is the big rub. How in the world can we accomplish this super-human feat?

Well, I'm sorry to say that I don't have a satisfactory answer. All of the answers I can personally conceive will not resonate with the current cultural constructs of today. I have to admit to defeat on this particular issue. Of course, I could devise myriad solutions which would work in a non-democratic environment which has no provisions for total equality and equal rights for everyone.

I'm not saying that we must give up on democracy and fall back into fascism, or communism or socialism. Those concepts have proven not to work in today's modern world.

What we need is a new form of government that defies the "tragedy of the commons" and opens up a new chapter in human development by eliminating the obvious flaws in our current cultural state. Unless or until we do, we will continually slide into an intolerable moribund state from which we can then rise above and begin anew; a continual flux, if you will, from intolerable to hopeful to acceptable to unknowable to intolerable, all within a span of a few centuries.

But, hey, none of us will be around to witness these maddening gyrations of human existence, so, I, for one, have decided to sit back, take a long swig of my wobbly pop and just laugh, laugh, laugh. I will live my existence as if I'm in a Saturday Night Live skit which laughs at the absurdity of modern life but doesn't offer or even contemplate a solution to our current plight.

That's right. Let's laugh it off. We'll be gone in a few years anyway.

--------------------

Okay, the Internet is working again. Now, I can get back to the more important aspects of life: gaming in a virtual world which has neither fantasy or reality at its core; a place where there are good answers, but only to the wrong questions.