Thursday, May 10, 2012

The System Is Broken and Its Up To Us To Fix It by Walt Barrett

   I'm no Harvard Economist, but I know a business problem when I see it. I'm a former factory worker who went into the mills at age 14 and wound up running my own companies.   We are heading into another election season and we are hearing a great deal of yelling and screaming about the economy and the lack of jobs. Both sides are doing a lot of finger pointing, but neither side has offered any real concrete solutions. We are going to hear a great many promises again as we have been for several election cycles in the past, but no one wants to step up to the plate and point out the flaws in this so called "Global Economy".  It is becoming painfully evident that there are some serious flaws in going global.  Meanwhile, the so-called leaders and protectors of our society continue to do nothing of any substance to correct the situation.  They know the problem just as well as I do, but no one wants to step up to the plate and address the problem. They are not the ones losing their homes, and going without proper medical care, or food.  The Global economy is not working for the average American worker because we, as a work force, cannot compete with people in Asia that in many cases only earn a tenth of what our workers have to earn in order to survive, never mind get ahead.  For them, the American dream is already dead.  They have lost their homes and their jobs and may never recover from the effects of the failed experiment called the "Global Economy".   The jobless and the barely surviving small business people already have realized  the painful and glaring fact that our government is not being honest with us and that our government is bought and paid for by powerful business interests from both inside and outside America.  We elect people to public office, send them to Washington and within a year they change.  Washington has become a bone-yard for lost ideals, broken promises and broken dreams.
   I don't like wasting words, so this is what we have to do to fix it because it's up to us.  The Government will never do it or they would have already. 
1.  Start making things in America again, something, anything!
2.  Start buying American made products and services again, because we gave the so called global economy a good chance and it has failed.  How simple is that.
So it costs a little more, so what!  In the long run you and your neighbors will be working and not wondering where your next paycheck is coming from.
3.  Start your own business if you have to.  Even a part time business is better than no business.  Use your imagination and at least make an effort.  Feeling sorry for yourself just doesn't get the job done.  
   Our company has started manufacturing  Green Products here in the USA just to help break this cycle of poverty that we are currently in due to bad government and failed economic policies.  You will never hear a politician make either of those statements.  
   We urge others to do the same.  It's time to invest again in America. Action really does speak louder than words.
   We need to remind government that real men and women have to take a stand for something worth believing in and would never sell their fellow Americans into corporate slavery. Very soon now it will be too late and there will be no coming back from the Event Horizon.  When we fail, all those other countries that we call our allies will be right there poised with shovels so that they can bury us as quickly as possible and dance on our graves.  Are we going to let ourselves become the hapless victims of corporate greed, or are we going to stand up and do the right thing?
Walt Barrett