WHY OUR ECONOMY IS IN CRISIS

          Gloria Christie-The Christie Group 

Change & Problem-Solving

Making Hard Simple

AND HOW TO TAKE IT BACK 

IN 5 EASY STEPS!

OK you already know this - but after we get hit left & right with dumb & dumber bells, it's hard to tell Up from Down.  So this is what's Up! Short & Sweet.

Our Economy used to run like a well-tuned 1933 Packard car. Back then we understood Supply & Demand. We valued Quality.  And a new President convinced us that we could share in his magnificent dream of a better Future. And over a decade, he made it so. After the Great Depression, we became a far better country than we had ever been. 

SPEED BUMP
by Gloria Christie
(1933 Packard)

Our Economy thrived, and we became the richest country in the world. But beginning in 1980, our Economy began its dramatic decline. 

Oh we still have Supply & Demand, but someone added the Global Market & NAFTA. Quality is out the window on most products (outside of the regenerating automobile industry). It is all about Productivity (also spelled Corporate Greed) achieved by combining and eliminating jobs, attrition, mergers, hostile takeovers, venture capitalists and vast shipments of our jobs to off-shore locations.

We used to speculate about how to spend those anticipated hours of leisure as robotics and energy-saving devices made their way into our lives. Instead the 37.5 hour work-week ballooned into 60+ hours, &/or we and juggled 2, 3 and sometimes more jobs. Unions shrank while Benefits and Retirement Packages became the banks to the Big Banks.  

Walmart became the largest employer in the US of A while exporting over 30 factories to China  as it bargained/threatened existing suppliers into nonprofit status and into extinction. Jobs became part-time, conditions worsened unto death sometimes.  

And the top 1% wrested 50% of the countries' wealth, while clamoring for more and more. Quality? Who had time? No one. So Walmart invented its own brand-name Quality Standards. And you guessed it, these standards were not higher.

Each of these acts tortured our Economy, pulling off first one wheel, then another and another until there were none. The Economy is going nowhere fast. In fact it is on a steady descent into innumerable private hells. 

No one really knows who owns the mega-mega-businesses. They are Global! They bought Congress. They bought some of the Supreme Court. They bought their way out of paying taxes, instead they hauled in returns, rebates and other rewards. 

Mom & Pop businesses became the casualties in this private war. Real wars are now being fought by our children to win non-compete contracts and mineral rights in foreign sands. We share our homes with grandparents & adult children. We cannot afford to go to the doctor or buy Big-Pharma non-compete Rx's. 

The new California of the Dust Bowlers' era are thousands of tents in cities we cannot see, because they hold no hope. In Kansas, where I live, Elderly people quietly starve or freeze alone.  The wolves of Foreclosure sniff death beneath the doors of thousands. Colleges are too expensive for our children & Student Debt Rates doubled this week. We forget the lessons of Entrepreneurship as we wait in line for bare food pantry shelves.

No Jobs, no Purchases.

But why would those manipulating our Economy send us down this decaying road as the Infrastructure crumbles around us? Or would they? Someone must Profit!

Oh they do. We must realize that Global Businesses, those amorphous, anonymous "individuals" with lobbying and contribution rights are looking out for their best interests. But unlike the businesses from our recent past, they have no ties to our Communities. They don't care about our Well-being. Our Middle-Class, China's Middle Class. It matters not to them which thrives.

So where do we look for Hope? What can we do to drive our Economy back to the Future? Well, fortunately we're in luck!

1. Take the dollar you would spent at Walmart & spent it in your locally-owned business. I know. Everything is more expensive. OK, if you can't afford something wait or do without. You'll live.
2. Write letters to your newspapers. Copy something you like - say from this blog & paste it on their "Letters To The Editor" web page.
3. If you don't like how the news doesn't report itself, call up their advertisers & tell them why you will not buy their products any longer. Then call the news & tell them what you did.
4. Look on the Internet to see whether or not your state & federal congressmen & women voted in your favor or in the favor of their contributors. Call them up & tell them to vote for us, or we'll fire them.
5. They will probably say OK - but they lie. So fire them at the voting booth.

Well, it has been fun, Kids. But time for me to get back to the old drawing board.  

                                                                                                             

As (Almost) Always,

                                                                                                                Gloria Christie, MS MPA