Some Ramblings on the Economy

When I watch the stock market plunge and read about autoworkers on the precipice or someone having their home foreclosed on my heart goes out to millions. On the other hand, I also recognize that the good times that we Americans have enjoyed since the Greatest Generation bequeathed us the benefits the American Century and more has been a free ride.

There was a time when unions were necessary to protect the workers. Now unions simply stuff their pockets, make unmeetable demands and consider themselves social engineers throwing the working man's money toward any cause that pops up on a Democrat's "to do" list.

When I see the stock market nearly halve in value I sense that it is only back to where it should have and would have been in the real world of our fathers and grandfathers, when wealth was not an entitlement, credit was used judiciously, progress was made in increments and as a result of effort, learning from mistakes and making improvements in self and product.

Since the dawn of the Modern Liberal Era success is a function of entitlement, with everyone entitled to a house whether they can afford it or not (Fannie Mae), huge bonuses whether the company performs or not ( golden parachutes, etc), good grades in school even if they are wholly illiterate (grade inflation and social promotions).
In the Modern Liberal era every child is "entitled" to "self-esteem" without having to do anything estiimable.

Union workers are "entitled" to paid vacations and sick days and federal holidays and time off if they want to have a baby. Workers are entitled to artificially inflated wages from "minimum" to union wages to the CEOs mentioned above.

Add to this new billion -- if not trillion -- dollar schemes because everyone is "entitled" to state-of-the-art health care and because everyone (including gang-bangers and the illiterate) are "entitled" to a four year vacation where they, too, can binge drink, projectile vomit and "go wild" for the cameras because "every child is ENTITLED" to go to college and you have an economy that cannot sustain what we were bequeathed and in fact, must -- simply must -- continue to plummet into just another one of those once great nations that you read about in history books.

Until we return to a merit-based society we will continue to decline and not all that long from now, crumble. Rewards are not an entitlement -- rewards are indications of work well done. No nation has even been a perfect meritocracy -- no nation has ever been a perfect anything. But America is the closest the worl has ever come and it's not a coincidence that we were -- until recently -- the most prosperous and successful nation in human history. Nor is it a coincidence that it is but forty years into the Modern Liberal era that we are seeing such a rapid decline.

Autoworkers need to be paid what they have earned. So too do their bosses. Children need to be graded according to their skill and effort and only children who show by their work and their efforts that they have learned (and have a desire to learn) should be promoted to the next grade and given, when needed, assistance to go to college (something that should come from the private sector, not the government but that's the stuff of another piece.)

Without merit-based rewards there is no incentive to better yourself, to save for a downpayment on a home, to go to night school, to forgo the party to study for the exam or to make the company run well. Perhaps if the car companies are allowed to go under, to have to start from scratch, they'll make a car that merits our buying it, they'll pay their workers what their skills and efforts merit, their CEOs will be rewarded based on their accomplishments and we can begin a second American century.