Jobs Rant - Long, Skip if You Want

A sawmill operated upwind of the town containing my high school. Sawdust was burned and often smoke drifted into town. One citizen complained to my father, "Bob, isn't this smoke terrible"? My father loudly sniffed and replied, "I smell a $100,000 payroll." My father was in the middle birth order of twelve children. At one time, he and his brothers slept in a dirt floored hillside dugout near the small family cabin on a dry land homestead in Northwest Colorado. He was always working, or looking for work. Sometimes he worked two or three jobs. His siblings, his children, his nieces and nephews and his grandchildren have the same values. We may all be pulling a plow for the man but it is our plow and we pull it for whom we please. We own our pride and dignity. My great fortune is to have this heritage on both sides of my family.

Job destruction seems to be our national policy. About the time someone achieves a certain level of comfort and security or, worse, inherits it, they start campaigning to "save" something. My father defined an environmentalist as, "someone who bought his five acres last year." Everything has a cost. Basic economics describe the multiplier effect. Every dollar spent is multiplied by the number of times it changes hands (what that dollar is worth is another subject).
The multiplier works both positive and negative. Take that dollar out of circulation, by loss of jobs or remitting it to another country, and the economy shrinks. For proof, look no further than small farm towns or small to medium cities in the "rust belt". Today, tax revenues at all levels are falling caused by loss of jobs.

What drives job loss is corruption. Corruption in the unions, corruption in the banking sector, corruption in the board rooms. Our USA corporation aren't; they are registered offshore so they can use our services, infrastructure, and military to protect their assets without paying for their use. The top of this smelly heap is the past and present corrupt leadership in Washington, D.C.

I don't have all the answers but I do have two tools, my vote, and my wallet. I will no longer vote for the lesser of two evils. I will research where I spend money and not patronize corrupted businesses if I can avoid them. Great tool, the Internet, for find information.

A job is essential for dignity and self respect. As for those who won't work, my parents referred to what they called, "the belly flapping principle". Great motivator!

The question becomes; will any of this make a difference? Yes it will, to me.