OK, ya got me. It aint me. I'm usually the quiet guy in the corner, who thinks of something clever to say an hour after the party's over.I read a few opinion pieces in the papers, typically they form a fair cross-section of the rational ideological spectrum. I enjoy George Will and E.J. Dionne, as well as Michael Gerson and Kathleen Parker. There's a guy for the Washington Post named Eugene Robinson who can swing a little too far left for my tastes, but he generally writes well enough. Since opinion pieces aren't really news, I can't give them too much weight. Persuasive writing is not necessarily informative writing.
[Don't get me started on blogs.....mostly junk writing. One is fortunate if one notices only one or two misspellings per entry. THIS BLOG IS NO EXCEPTION. In fact, stop reading now and go pick up a reputable publication instead]
If you're still here, I wanna write about Fareed Zakaria. He's an Indian immigrant who moved to the US in college. He published a piece in the latest issue of Time (yes, a liberal-skewing publication) titled "Restoring the American Dream." I thought it was quite good, and I think he's probably one of the smarter and more thoughtful journalists/talking heads out there right now. It dovetails nicely with the Michael Moore documentary I watched over the weekend.
The basic premise of the piece is that America is (potentially) slumping on the world stage. Our economy has grown slowly, wages are stagnant, and there's a palpable sense that we the people aint what we used to be. The one fact Michael Moore's documentary makes crystal-clear is that we aren't. My history teachers never mentioned it, but the post-war American economy was so strong and productive simply because our competitors (in the auto business, especially) were obliterated. Think about it: Germany and Japan were the only two BIG automakers I can recall growing up. Remember hearing relatives call Toyotas "riceburners." Next thing you knew, everyone had a Honda or Toyota because they were fuel-efficient, relatively cheap, and very reliable. We competed just fine, on a global scale, until our competitors caught up.
So, nowadays we hear politicians talk about punishing companies for outsourcing jobs overseas and how productive our American workforce is. Sure, we're productive. But as Zakaria points out, we produce for $14 an hour what Mexican labor produces at $7 per hour. If you're a business-owner why would you want to pay more? That kind of idealism will land you in bankruptcy.
Zakaria mentions, perhaps only briefly, that he grew up in an era of Indian protectionism wherein the Indian government protected Indian industry "form foreign exploitation and domination." His (apparently) firsthand opinion of this practice is that it simply "added to stagnation and backwardness." There is, according to this guy, no future in attempting to revive the good old days gone by with policies that close out foreign enterprise here in the US. I see his point. I think the old Soviet Union did the same thing, holding their own citizens in a "captive" economy where they could only purchase crappy Russian cars, for example (of course, when the KGB showed up, you'd be a more literal type of captive). Too much government meddling, like this, is a recipe for bad times. There are some "populist" Democrats who espouse the idea that this country can recapture past glories by encouraging multi-national corporations to keep their workforces here instead of moving to another country. But, in my estimation, these politicians are selling snake oil (and they know it). The cat's outta the bag, here, folks. There's no going back.
So, where to go? It's great to be able to say "this is wrong" and "that's bad," but where do the solutions come from? I hope they come from folks like Zakaria, or his ilk (perhaps even brighter than he). Manufacturing jobs for things like Coke and cars aren't returning here, but manufacturing the next generation of cars and trucks (yes, the electric car or the hydrogen car) could be. This country possesses a large concentration of highly skilled highly educated people who could learn the intricacies of new technologies far sooner than the populations of most other countries (though, I'll wager, China and India want to change this). Research and development, according to Zakaria, are paramount, and we should consider a broad-based tax in order to fund that - and only that (in other words, the money's only permitted for use in R&D, and not Bridges to Nowhere).
He also identifies areas that could use some fixing, like our tax code and government spending (particularly on healthcare and entitlements). These could be reined in, and if successful could permit the US government to use the potential savings to fund more R&D which would in turn fund future growth. At least potentially. Have I qualified this enough?
Hell, these aren't my ideas. But I'm glad someone has been putting their grey matter to work and coming up with something more than the mindless babble they're putting on TV. One can imagine a group (a mythical group) of elected officials coming together and saying, "this is what we agree on, let's do this now." Gee, that'd be swell, huh? I think the final problem, something Zakaria doesn't mention, is the dearth of high-functioning brains in Washington DC. Taking Michael Moore at his word, he claims that most (if not all) of our best and brightest students eschew a career in public service or science in favor of a Wall Street job. This makes good sense, he argues, because these students are so loaded down with debt that they can't afford not to take the money that's being offered. I have no idea whether or not this is true, but assuming that it is it could be one reason for our stagnation, and yes - I'll say it Jimmy Carter- our malaise.
Into these dark times usually ride the Easy Answerers. Feel good about you, they say, we're Americans and we're always great! Didn't you see the movies? America always wins because we're always right! You can have it all again, because you're you and you are awesome!
These are charlatans. Fakers. Liars. Evil people. They want the power to rule over you like the kings, emperors, and Pharaohs of old.
Solutions, whatever they may be, are difficult. I know there have got to be good men and women on the Hill who have potentially brilliant ideas that their leadership will tell them to keep to themselves simply because it's not politically expedient. There are smart people there, who've gotta find the guts to take that first step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. And, from there, perhaps lead us sheep and peasants where we want to go.
Even if we don't know it yet.
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