The other day I saw President Obama proclaim the recession is over. While I am glad to hear this news I think someone forgot to tell everyone who doesn’t live in the White House.
I am not a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and in fact I don’t even know how to use QuickBooks. I do have something that the higher levels of government and top notch economic scholars do not have and that is my experience as a small business owner.
I had an experience this week that really opened my eyes as to how bad things really are out there.
I was hired to over haul the computer systems of a telemarketing room. I know you hear the word telemarketing and your ready to place my blog on the national do not read list but I have a secret for you. If you really want to know what the economy is like ask the person who spends eight hours a day talking to people all across America trying to sell them something. If you want a real expert on the economy look no further.
With the permission of the people who owned the business I monitored their sales people while I was working. I knew things were very bad out there but I had no idea just how bad. The statics and numbers you hear on the news just don’t hit home until you hear person after person talk about how they are out of work, have no heath insurance, are about to lose their home, how $200.00 which was once disposable income is now a fortune.
All joking aside I honestly believe every senior White House official and economic adviser to the President should have it be a job requirement to spend a week telemarketing. They may have the raw numbers but those numbers would really hit home if they could hear the voices and the stories of their fellow Americans who have and continue to suffer through what I can only guess is economic recovery since the recession is over.
So yes like many others out there I’m very good at identifying the problems facing us but that doesn’t do a thing to fix them. If you’ll indulge me I do have a few ideas that maybe you’ll agree with.
1) Go back to being a nation of producers instead of consumers. Common sense will tell you that the money to consume comes from the money you earn when you produce.
2) Bring American jobs back to America. It is time to either get the labor unions on board with recovery or break them once and for all. Plain and simple the reason so many of our jobs have gone over seas is the unions have out priced American labor. At some time you would have thought it would occur to them that having 60% of what you once had is better than having 100% of nothing.
3) Make low interest loans to companies that will build factories in America and will place a sticker on their products that reads MADE IN AMERICA BY AN AMERICAN.
They will put people back to work. Radical idea I know.
4) Change our current tax code to a flat 10% that every American pays on what they earn, yes even the rich guys too who pay next to nothing now.
5) Face the fact that if the recession is really over it’s only because we are entering a full scale depression.
These are just the ideas of a guy with no economic education but plenty of experience making a living.
It’s time to face facts and stop sugar coating how bad things really are and have a frank and open discussion about how to fix things and listen to every single idea no matter how radical it may seem.
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