Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Customers Wanted, Apply Within

   I saw this sign on a marquis of a local business and that tells the whole story, doesn't it?
The factory where I get my metal pieces powder coated only works three days a week.  They used to paint five days a week, three shifts, around the clock, all the time.
   No amount of government incentives could induce them to hire more people without additional sales.  Unless they needed a fifth person for a hand of Bridge!  They are working pretty slow as it is.  You could set up a program where they paid zero taxes and it wouldn't help at all.  They need customers.
   If powder coating of steel is down then so are steel sales, and so are the truck drivers who deliver the steel.  So are the sales of computers which keep tract of all this and the bookkeepers who keep track of them.  It is the wing flap of the butterfly felt everywhere!
   I can't imagine anybody in their right mind wanting to be President!  I mean, really, could you solve this problem?  It is not just us; it is the same everywhere, all over the world!  Germany might be the strongest in the Eurozone but there is a good chance the problems in Greece, Ireland, Spain and other's might bring them down.  Those countries have tried the austerity measures for over two years and their situation is just getting worse!  Can we look to another country to see what they are doing, maybe see what works and what doesn't, one step in the right direction to get out of this mess?
   Steps it is going to be too.  It will not be a fast process.  We are in this mess for the long haul, maybe deeper before we start to see some light.  When I was a lad unemployment payments were for 20 weeks and then you were expected to find a job.  Now it is 99 weeks!  That is almost two damn whole years!!!
You could get a degree from a Junior College in that amount of time!
   Hey, that is not a bad idea off the top of my head!  How about making that a requirement for unemployment!  You can collect unemployment for two years AND we'll pick up the tuition, but you got to go to school!  It would take a few million people out of the unemployment cycle, give some work to the bus drivers, the school staff and lots of others down the line.
   It is not easy to create work, oh lots needs to be done but someone has to pay for it.  More important someone has to want it done.  We need customers.  We need customers who pay!
   Have you thought what happens if we get rid of Medicare?  What would happen if there were no "Obamacare"?  We have a brand new hospital in our town and they just published their annual report.
Big article in the newspaper this morning.  25% of their customers do not pay!  Up from 18% and an up and onward trend!  Cool, huh?  The working poor without insurance, the down and outers, those that have nothing.  That is an ever increasing circle and it wants to envelope us.  Hospitals go out of business every day, just like any other business they cannot work for nothing for any length of time.  Medicare and other government programs pay about a third and private insurances pay the other third.  What happens if we take the government third out of this equation?  Quite simply they would shut their doors.
   Dollars and programs for the under insured provide jobs and keep the hospitals open for all of us.  That is pretty simple math too.  If you want to bring down the cost of medicine, create more doctors and nurses and all the people who help us when we so need their help.
   Hey, this is easy!  If I were President I could create more jobs by extending Obamacare!  I might offer "free" tuition to medical schools and nurses training programs?
   "Free" is in quotes because nothing is really free.  Maybe some kind of internship, some kind of return for my investment?  There are ideas here that could be explored.
   It is a tough job to be President.  I wouldn't want that job.  There are things I wouldn't do though.  I think they should have to take the Hippocratic Oath, like doctors used to do, (they don't do it any more!).
   "First do no harm"!  We may not know exactly the right answers, know the consequences of what seems like a simple solution, but we do know when harm is done.  Everyone knows that.
   In the name of progress and recovery we are abandoning our pollution standards, allowing more dirty air into what God has given us to breathe.  Really, we did this and it is crazy.  A cave in to Republicans and prosperity at any costs.
   I would not drill willy nilly, here and there, in my backyard or the beach I love.  The Gulf Oil spill taught me a lesson and it was there for all to learn.  It can be dangerous and deadly, black gold that blinds us.  Do you ever wonder what happens at night when the lights are off?  Power still surges, going its way along the wires.
The first person to develop a battery and incentive for this night time energy will be very rich indeed.
   There is an idea!  I might offer a reward?  Save me a billion bucks and I will give you a million!  Why not, we need it?
   Oh, I might come up with a few more ways to create a job or two, but I wouldn't want to be President, 
no siree bob, not me.
   But what would YOU do?  We have until Thursday when the President will give his speech, and then it won't be about jobs at all but bickering and infighting, name calling and endless drilling.
   Seriously, if you had to create just five jobs and figure out a way to fund them, what would you do?
If you could solve that problem, maybe you could be President of the United States!

8 comments:

T. said...

It is one hell of a problem requiring one hell of a solution. You've got some great ideas here and great points. When Obama first got in one of the things he wanted to do was to give people a college education in exchange for community service. Two years college, two years community service. Not a bad idea, would educate people, put them to work in area's where there is work and give back to the community.

Autumn Leaves said...

I need a bottle of aspirin.

Jerry Carlin said...

Funny, did you know that aspirin is made from the bark of the Willow tree and was used by the American Indians for centuries? Now it would go through a hundred committies in search of FDA approval and cost $10 dollars a pill. Yes, the times they are a changing!

Kay said...

You have some great ideas. I am sure there are a lot of great ideas somewhere in DC..( you know the old story of putting a few hundred monkeys in a room with typewriters and somehow they will write a great novel) I am sure I got that wrong..but you know what I mean. If the politicos and tea baggers weren't so rabid about doing in the opposition..then maybe the ideas could get support. But I am afraid as long as the mindless bickering continues..it keeps work from being done. The disrespect people are showing our elected President is disappointing at best. It certainly doesn't help the country move ahead.
Of course we all suffer in this terrible economy. The union busting corporations and State govts. have made it impossible for my husband and me to get the medical help we need. Since his union had to cave into corp. demands we now have to pay 20% of my knee replacement and Hubby's ankle repair. That is money we don't have. And we pay for our insurance more each year and get less coverage. We always say we are lucky Hubby has a decent job..but his earning power is being whittled away yearly with the changes in our healthcare policies amongst other things. Still I look for things to get better. Just call me Pollyanna!

Barbra Joan said...

Jerry, sorry I'm just testing .. I can't seem to comment on certain blogs.. see how this works and if your still on my a-list BJ
I too need a bottle of aspirin,
BJ

Jerry Carlin said...

Thajnks, Barbra, loud and clear! I wish more people would test. sometimes I think no one reads my jibberish at all.

Timaree said...

I'm reading. I don't really know what to add. I think one thing people need to do is stop thinking in All or Nothings. Not ALL people on welfare are druggies or women wanting lots of free babies. Not ALL the people on unemployment hope for long term assistance so they can be lazy and not work (nor are they ALL lazy). It also doesn't help that people are thinking NOTHING from Obama is good for the country and hopefully McConnell will quit saying he will do NOTHING that will help Obama. Alls and nothings are brick walls. It's hard to move forward through brick walls.

I just got an email from my sister yesterday citing terrible things in Obama's healthcare bill. Trouble is, the number of the bill they cite is not the bill that was signed into law. So why is this going around? Because it stirs up hate. Who cares that it's not true. That needs to change also. If you get an email - check to see if it's true before passing it on!

Jerry Carlin said...

Yeah, I think you are right, Freebird, it is not any kind of truth we are after. Some people are after the downfall of Obama even if they have to bring the whole country down to acheive their goals!