America in Transition

by Jack Lee

If there is one really good thing to come from all these GOP debates, it’s the great voter education we’re getting. And brother do we need some educating, because we have some really big challenges coming up!

This next election is critically important for a number of reasons, but I think the most important is because we’re a country in transition. The world is changing into a global market place and what role America will play in this new world market is still being written. So, if we don’t make the right calls, we could find ourselves in a world that has passed us by.

America has spent the last 150 years building up its industrial power to be the best.

. Along with that came the rise of unions, better wages and we started thinking about conserving our natural resources, clean air and safety regulations, and this was all for our own good. At the same time our wages kept increasing and adding to the companies overhead. It was inevitable that at some point our big manufacturing companies would start looking for a cheaper place to do business. In short, we regulated and priced ourselves right out of those types of jobs.

We have replaced our manufacturing jobs with service jobs, fast food jobs, paper pushing jobs, jobs in education, jobs in government and in scientific research as a stop gap, but we’re definitely hurting from a loss in manufacturing jobs. We simply reached the limit of what we could pay workers this explains why the Ipod is made in China and not the USA, where it was invented. It explains why Apple employs 5X more people overseas than here. This huge labor force shift was as predictable as it was inevitable, because there is virtually zero incentives to keep assembly line type jobs here.

President Obama says our economy is suffering from a concentration of wealth among one percent of the population. It’s true that we are seeing a concentration of wealth like never before, but this a symptom, not the cause, of our changing economy. Its likely going to get a lot worse before it gets better too. (This next election is critical)

We’re in a critical transition to a new global economy and the challenge now is to figure out the least painless way to do it and what out our new role will be and how can we best manage it? This is our reality; it’s not about the rich or whether we should tax them more. Right now America’s wealth is on the decline and we should have seen it coming, but we can adapt and still prosper if we make the right choices…the long range choices we are so unaccustomed to making.

The good news is that in time the wage earners of those other countries are going to ask for more money just like we did until they too reach that tipping point between profit and loss. They will also become consumers of goods that will create more demand and move profits from one country to another and back again. But, this could be a hundred years out or more and in the meanwhile we have to deal with the here and now.

In theory, each modern nation will eventually focus on developing their strong points and they will shed their weak areas to emerging economies that are more willing to do anything for a buck. In the long run this all works out, a win-win. But again, what about this nasty transition phase? This is where our pain is coming from and Obama is hanging it all on the wealthy 1% and that’s a shame. This does not advance our economy or solve anything.

What we need to do now is to elect our best visionaries who understand market forces, business and where America fits in. Who will lead us through it? I’m not sure, but I know it’s not Obama. He’s stuck on socialism and he’s doing nothing to ensure we have a viable future.