Double Down Domino: New ingenuity VS Old standby

Today's subject was the battle between conservative and liberal values, the battle of note concerning job creation.  It occurred to me today that either way jobs are created would help individuals, but when concerning ourselves with the overall health of our economy, one stands the clear winner.

When new jobs are created in the private sector, new money "trickles" into our economy.  This is especially true when new businesses are started or additional services are included in "old" business.  The interesting thing about this process is that the money these "new" workers are paid is money that was not originally part of our economy.  Contrasting this idea with the creation of government jobs such as infrastructure is a must.  The government cannot create wealth.  It can, I suppose create wealth for individuals (think tax evasion, think pork, think Charlie Rangel). It cannot introduce wealth into our economy.  It can only, I'm afraid to say, redistribute "original" wealth.

The discussion today was whether the free market or the government would be quicker to upend joblessness.  Could the government in one giant fell swoop use it's finances to immediately put people to work?  Or, conversely could the free market, doing what it has always done, create jobs for the unemployed at a faster pace.  It is a difficult subject to work with.  It would seem, at first glance, that the government, once again unfortunately, has the funds to put people to work almost overnight.  But, let's look at what has happened in this recent debacle.  Before W left office he started the trillion dollar stimulus.  O came later and put the majority of the remaining in play for "job creation".  Are we better off now than before the stimulus was paid into the system?  I find it necessary to remind you that every other day the estimates are "adjusted" and the adjustments always seem to favor the worse.  We are currently standing at about 10% unemployed.  So, since we're talking a period of two years, how fast has the government actually gotten people "to work"?  Now, taking the antithesis of government job creation, private enterprise, into account, we'll find that the job creation, in this current fiscal fiasco, isn't there either.  One probable problem with our comparison between private and public employment is the fact that the government in one way or another, has the ability to control private sector growth.  Taxes, laws and other legislation can and has had effects on the private sector.  Considering laws such as NAFTA (private enterprise creates jobs, but they aren't in the US), taxes on corporations and taxes on individuals, the government has done little to date to stimulate new small business growth.  When, if we look, we see that small businesses are the beast of burden in our economy, if the government and the private sector worked together, could we solve the problems faster?  The impediment to the two working together is they seem antithetical.  Business wants low taxes and cheap labor.  Government attempts to force on business, expensive labor and high taxes.  Government does this to keep government in government.  They don't want to lose their jobs.  So I suppose in conclusion to my rambling dissertation I should say that I believe in situations such as we're facing, I expect government to work with private sector.  Working together, without pork, without raising taxes, without leftist or rightwing rhetoric, we could probably solve our problems much faster, and possibly much more permanently.

J-

Squeezing the pig... Or not.

I'm just not ready to divulge the insights of the pig. You'll have to deal with this.

After years of trying to put my finger on the "problem" with this wonderful country, I've finally figured it out. There is one blaring problem with our society. So enormous, so all-encompassing, so draining to our society, to our government, so impossible to live without (for now), that I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out. Everyone in this country, legal, illegal, black, white, red, yellow, living and sometimes dead has probably dealt with elevated blood pressure due to this entity. It costs taxpayers hundreds annually, directly, and perhaps thousands indirectly. It costs the government a possibly astronomical amount of dough. Every year, perhaps every six months or less, they try to raise revenue to "get out of the red". Every year, perhaps every six months it doesn't work. The truth is, it never will. Any guesses?

The USPS is this mucho grande villain. They tempt us with pretty stamps that cost what, $0.42, no wait, that was two weeks ago. Now those same stamps are worthless unless you go and buy a $0.02 stamp to make them work again. I wonder how much it costs to produce a 2 cent stamp? I can't imagine it costs nothing. Lets just imagine that a 2 cent stamp costs 1 cent to print. Then that 2 cent stamp that is only worth 1 cent to the USPS has to be sold to consumers. Someone has to be paid to sell that stamp to the consumer. That person, undoubtedly, is unionized. So, someone making $30 an hour is selling this 2 cent stamp that is only worth 1 cent to the USPS. If the average transaction takes 2 minutes to complete (HAHA) at the Post Office, that employee was just paid $.10 to sell those particular 2 cent stamps. So, just to break even on the 2 cent stamps they have to sell 10 2 cent stamps. Now, if most people are like me, they probably buy as few stamps as they have to because they know they'll be nearly worthless in six months, most people are going to only buy a few at a time. Now, I've been in line at the post office a few times in my life. Not once have I ever been in and out in 2 minutes. Every second that someone is wasting selling a 2 cent stamp puts the USPS further in debt. This is a never ending cycle. The good thing is, if everyone just bought "forever" stamps we could end this cycle in a few years. Buy them now. Don't ever buy a stamp again. What would they do then? If no one needed to buy stamps because they had "forever" stamps, how could they raise revenues?

Now, at the beginning I said that this was the "one" blaring problem with our country. The point is, that if the government has their hands in it, it's going to fail unless they "steal" our money to "bail" it out. It applies to everything the government does. If Chrysler was going to fail before, they're going to descend to the depths of hell now. If Citibank was going to fail before, well, you get the idea. Now, with all that said, who wants government controlled health care?

J-

PS- Apparently the only place you can get a 2 cent stamp is the post office. The sane business entities realize there is no money selling a 2 cent stamp...