Musings

Wow, I should stop reading the news. I should stop delving into stories. I should stop following links, and should just sit back and let the TV "news" channel of my choice lull me into nothingness.

America is in trouble but nobody in our government seems interested in doing anything about it. What issue in particular am I talking about?

The "economic recovery." Call me a liberal, but I see a problem with the current recovery we are having. Its only helping those who are the same people who caused the bulk of the problems in the first place?

Oh, don't get me wrong, the average American consumer (myself included in the past) is an idiot who spends way more than they can afford to. Credit card debt, along with with bad mortgages, too much on car loans, and nothing in savings helped fuel this disaster.

However, that doesn't absolve Wall Street. And Wall Street, not the average American, is who recieved the most bailout money.

Profits are up, bonuses are rolling, and millions of Americans are out of work with no prospects in the short term. Honestly, how long can a "recovery" go on if 10% (and the numbers are higher when you include people who have given up hope of getting a job) of the work force in out of work?

Without getting too deep into the silliness that is financial world pay plans, how about we put some real incentive back into the jobs?
Those people are highly trained, and frequently, doing high stress jobs. I have no issues with them being well compensated. However, "bonuses" should be based on performance, ie making money in the long term, not just "performance" which is shifting money for short term "gains." (Its not a gain if the money goes away again down the line.)

What if, and this is crazy liberal talk I know, we start breaking up companies that are "too big to fail."

Think about it? Why should any company, especially a bank, be too big to fail? That doesn't lead to healthy competition and smart business practices. It leads to making dumb decisions because you know the government will have your back when you tank.
what if, instead of rewarding US companies for moving jobs overseas (it can help boost the bottom line!) we encourage investment in factories here? Sure, I know that isn't cost effective, the way the system is set up currently.

However, it could be. Give tax credits for companies keeping jobs here or creating new jobs. There are lots of carrots you can dangle before them. Hit them with penalties every time they decide to "outsource" jobs to a foreign country. Create tariffs on goods, without actually taxing the good.

Heck, start a national campaign "Buy American for America." We are never going to be a manufacturing-centric nation again, but we do need a certain percentage of those jobs. Do they need to be as high paying as the car company jobs with their great benefits and pension plans?
No. But they should pay a living wage.

And what if, WHAT IF, some sort of cap was set on exectutive pay? Cap it at total compensation, TOTAL including stock options, deferred payments, assorted perks, and cash, could be no more than 500x the average pay of workers in a company.
So, if the average pay was 50k, an executive could recieve no more than 25mil a year in benefits. Is that unfair? Really?

I don't see how this could possibly be a bad thing.

We need to make it easier to unionize. But unions need to be smarter. There needs to be oversight of unions to insure they are looking out for the best interests of their workers.
I'm going to stop my crazy pinko rantings here. They way we have been doing things is not working. At least not for the bulk of America.

Part of the blame falls on the American people.

Much of the blame falls on the super-rich and politicians who seem to have forgetton that the average American is not a millionare.