Normally I don't talk politics... cause I hate it and the online dialog about it typically causes all types of racial nastiness. I honestly think all the debates sound like those elementary debates where our peers at the time would get up on the podium in the school cafeteria and promise pizza everyday and an extra hour's worth of recess. They were willing to say ANYTHING to get the gain the people's support.
Things haven't changed much since we've hit the adult world.
Those same people are still promising things that they don't have the power to control in order to get a vote (evident in President Obama's Presidency more than any other I can remember; the republicans handicapped almost every move he tried to make.) A vote that only "kinda" matters sometimes (example: see the George Bush incident in 2000 when he lost the popular vote but won over the electoral college).
But I had a thought process sparked while I was in line to vote...
A gentlemen who was not much further ahead of me in line was speaking with this lady and he caught my attention because he said something about the democratic party. Now, before I go on, let me set this encounter up: I had been playing this game where I had been trying to guess who was a democrat and who was a republican based on their disposition and how their jewelry looked. I would look at their papers to try to confirm. I know... it was shallow, but I was bored. Anyway, I look at this guy and I honestly couldn't really tell by looking at him. Looked like a cool guy in his mid forties. Didn't have on any jewelry that I could remember. The only thing that may have gave him away was his hair. His hair looked like he was two days removed from an Esquire shoot. Not perfect but done just enough to make me think "this fella pays extra for this... and he goes twice a week". I look down at his paper - Republican... So when I hear him say "Now, the Democratic party...." I'm expecting to hear slander, as I had heard elsewhere in the line by other Republicans, but he surprised me...
He began to talk about the GDP of the USA and how, every time the US of A is under Republican control, GDP has gone down and how the notion of the "trickle down" economy doesn't really work. He was against having someone run the nation like a corporation. He said that owner's of corporations care most about one thing: the bottom line... and if they can find a way to only pay somebody 5 dollars a week to get a job done, they will do it. Honestly, this is nothing that we haven't heard before from any Democratic/President Obama supporter, but it was when he started talking about his own personal business that I had my thoughts stirred up.
This guys says that he owns his own business; he has several employees. And while he's talking, he asked the lady a rhetorical question. He say's "If they make it so that I can get more money, but the demand isn't there, why would I hire more people?! I'm not gonna hire anybody if the demand isn't there." And inside of me a light bulb came on... and I began to think about the bailouts and how ALL of the mega wealthy people went on trips and took vacations, etc... I remembered the story of the how the guy got paid MILLIONS to close down several Home Depot Expo... and then I made it personal and I asked myself a question...
I said to myself: Self?
Myself said: Huh?
I said: If I already had a well running, very efficient business that, somehow, began gaining substantially more profits, why would would I go hire more people? Without additional demand, what would those people do? Why would I hire people to do NOTHING? I wouldn't... I would pocket that money. I may give some to the employees currently there... maybe... since it does make business sense to keep them happy... but I'm not hiring new people just to give them money while they sit on the clock and twiddle their thumbs. Why would I?! Just to say I'm helping the jobs market?! That doesn't really make business sense to me; not when I would get the same effect donating to the charity of my choice. At least that way I would have yet another tax write off at the end of the year. (sidenote: I'm not that cold-hearted. I'm just trying to think logically like I think a corporation would think.) Thinking as a corporation, there is just no way that I would just GIVE money to people to do absolutely nothing since I don't have any work for them to do. And I know what you're thinking... "if you gave them a job, they would have money and more demand would be there." This is true. BUT it is also dependent on EVERY corporation operating the same way. Meaning... you have to get the likes of Donald Trump to stop telling people that they're fired and tell him he is going to have to hire people that he has no use for whatsoever. There would have to be a significant amount of businesses operating the same way and giving people jobs for any amount of new demand to even be significant enough to matter.
Here's the truth as far as my eyes can see: People with lower income are the spenders; this is majority of your consumer base. Higher income people are the investors and savers. At the end of the day we need BOTH the rich investors and the lower income consumers to have at least SOME sort of income. Investors are needed to keep new businesses afloat... but without the consumers there would be no need for the new businesses at all.
In my opinion, gasoline prices caused the issues. $300 a month in gas became like another big ticket purchase that many couldn't afford since they were already living check to check. It was gas that made food prices go up and once the food prices went up, the rest was history. "Broke" people had decisions to make: Buy this new TV/pair of shoes/house/car... or eat. If they cure the prices of stuff we must consume (gas, bread, eggs, milk, etc.) so that they are no longer ridiculous, people will have more money to blow on stupid stuff. Consumers go up, demand goes up. Demand goes up, new hires go up. New hires go up, consumers go up. It's the circle of economic life.
(Sidenote: It's a global economy. It's a good idea to vote based on the person you feel has the best foreign policy because, if the other nations stop working with us... well... let's just hope other nations don't stop working with us... we don't want to see that happen.)
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.