Solving Problems

Good news! Unemployment is dropping! Well, that's what they said. Of course, figuring out exactly what "unemployment rates" are is really tricky because you have to figure out who the employed are, who the unemployed are, who is in the labor force, and who doesn't count. I mean, clearly your 10-year-old is not employed, but also not counted in the unemployment figures, right? And that was an easy one. And, of course, actually getting the data is not easy, either. It's not a hard number. It's a survey the government uses of about 60,000 households from which they derive their numbers for "employed", "unemployed", and "not in the labor force". Very tricky stuff.

But, hey, the government is going to fix that for you. Don't you worry about it. The current president or the next one is going to get right on that. Because, you see, it's one of our biggest concerns these days and so they need to get that moving. Have you ever asked yourself how, exactly, they would do that? You see, it's far more complicated to create jobs than it is to calculate unemployment rates. That's because employment is a complicated thing.

What causes unemployment? "Job losses, dummy" might be the snarky reply, but hang on. What causes job losses? Job losses in the private sector occur when companies aren't making enough money to employ people. And what causes that? Well, the demand for their product drops off. And what causes that? Oh, that's a tough one. Look at this latest crisis.

We have the housing crash where lenders loaned money stupidly. No, not merely ignorantly or unwisely. It was plain stupid. Lend it to people who cannot pay it back and guess what happened? They couldn't pay it back! Go figure! Now the lenders are in trouble. Wall Street bankers don't help. There is a scare, the government jumps in with a "rescue plan", and what happens? People realize there is a problem and stop buying. Well, of course, there were already problems with products like American automobiles. So they had to be bailed out, too. And now the public is more frightened. Buying drops off. As demand for goods drops, jobs begin to shed. As jobs begin to shed, the public gets more frightened. Well, you see where this is going, and it's not good. And it's not even that simple. There is the problem of minimum wage. A company will pay to hire someone to do a job that is worth X, and if X is less than the minimum wage, that job won't exist. There is the cost of taxes, where employers have to decide whether hiring people is worth the taxes they have to pay to do it. There are all the regulations and licensing laws added to the cost of business, money that can go to an employee ... or not. The more employees, the more regulations. Thus, limiting the number of employees can save a company money. And, of course, there is the problem of "corporate greed". No, not that evil kind. The normal kind. Any business at all is in business to make money. No profit, no business. No business, no jobs. It's that simple.

The problem, then, is much larger than a bailout. It's much larger than stupid banks or government taxes or Wall Street big wigs. It's a human problem. It includes fear and greed, want and need, regulation and deregulation, wise practices and self-centered efforts. It's about the need for income versus the attitude of entitlement. And this is where the bad news is found. The way to fix the economy, you see, is to change the hearts of the people. The way to solve this mess is to stop theft, eliminate greed, and correct self-centeredness. How much money, for instance, would go back into the economy if doctor's weren't required to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in malpractice insurance? Why do they pay so much? Two reasons. On one hand there are greedy doctors without conscience who don't do their jobs right. On the other hand there are greedy patients or their surrogates who believe they have the right to perfection or payment. People. That's the problem.

I hate to break it to you, but a Republican president will not be able to solve this problem. The problem is not a government problem. It's a people problem. Changed hearts. That's what's necessary. Changed lives. That's the solution. And the government is not in the business of changing hearts. The good news is that we know Who is. I would think that we'd want to be putting more effort into that solution. That one is an eternal solution.