Kite Jockey’s Weblog

So Mr. Obama is going to sign the “stimulus” package today and save us all. GIVE ME A FLIPPIN’ BREAK! Actually he is not the first and he will more than likely not be the last to toss good money (or in this case borrowed money) after bad. I just don’t get it. Why would anyone in their right mind think the government can solve this “crisis”. Are we all so dumb that we can not see what is happening right around us or are we so apathetic that we just don’t care.  Look when you live in a capitalist country you are going to have successes and failures. That is the nature of the capitalist system. When you start hearing things like “so and so is too big to fail” and the words “government bail out” look out because the next words you are going to hear are socialized or nationalized________(fill in the blank). Well it is not too late to stop socialism from taking over but there is not much time left. Capitalism is headed for an early grave.

We now know that once government gets it greedy little hands on a formally capitalistic institution like a bank that things are going to get nutty. Case in point the salary cap for CEO’s. Does Mr. Obama really think this is going to fix anything. This is only going to make things worse. When you cap the pay for those at the top it has a trickle down effect. If a CEO only makes $500,000 a year then the VPs that work under him are only going to make $300K to $400k. The folks below them will make even less and the folks below them will make even less and so on and so forth until the guy at the bottom (me and you) make way less than we do now or be out of a job all together. How is that supposed to fix the economy?

Also do we really want the government running “private” businesses. I mean look at the great job they have done with this country. Gosh they have got everything running so efficiently and we have lots of money in reserves for things like social security and medicare and Medicaid. Wow I am so impressed. They never waste a dime and have always looked after the best interest of the American people. Everything the government touches turns to gold. Oh, and the ethics and the morals of those in elected office are of the highest order. They never lie, cheat on their spouses, or their taxes. They never take bribes and they are above reproach. Wow why didn’t we think of this sooner, of course the government can fix everything. After all unlike most businesses if they run out of money they can always print more. Why shouldn’t we have socialized and nationalized everything. What are we waiting for utopia awaits!

In reality things are not going to turn out well. I will say that for a short amount of time (maybe a few weeks) things are going to look like they are going to turn around. The money from the stimulus package may actually buy us a little time. But in the end I am afraid that once the money is gone (and it will not take long) that we are going to be back in bad shape but next time it will be even worse. We are going to be in more debt than this country has ever seen. Business all over this country are going to continue to fail one right after another. More people are going to loose their jobs and the next time the government will not be able to buy its way out of a wet paper bag. We are headed right into national bankruptcy and the idiots are leading the parade. The sad thing is I don’t think they know just what they are doing to this country. They think they have the answer but they lack the foresight to see the errors of their ways.

It disturbs me too that the American people are not fed up with all this crap. That they are not protesting this monumental brain fart that the government is selling us. Well if the American people are missing it somehow, the rest of the world is not. You would think if this stimulus package was such a good idea that markets all over the world would be rallying behind it with support. You would think that investors world wide would be chomping at the bit for a piece of the action. But that is not what is happening at all. When this so called stimulus package was passed investor confidence world wide took a huge dip. It is funny that the rest of the world see this for what it is. It is the death of capitalism and soon the free market system.

So how do we reverse this. Well I don’t pretend to have all the answers but here are a few things that I would suggest for the short term for all you potential bail out I mean stimulus recipients:

1. If you are a business owner large or small, never take government money. This will allow you to make your own decisions about how and when you invest your money. You will not have to worry about salary caps or big brother interference (other than some of the stupid laws that you are already dealing with). If you business is failing then find a better business model, or reorganize so you can start making money again. But what ever you do don’t take cash from Uncle Sam, there is always a string attached.
2. Quit making the same widget if  it is not selling. Move on and keep up with the times. I don’t care if your great, great, great, great, grand father came up with the widget maybe people in 2009 just don’t need it anymore.
3. If your CEO mismanages the company fire him or her. Don’t let one idiot run the whole thing into the ground.
4. Modernize your operations so you can produce quality. The adage is true you have to spend money to make money. If you keep producing crappy products sooner or latter people are going to figure this out and stop buying from you.
5. Quit sending American jobs overseas. If we are to survive in this global market we need to be strong at home first. That means hiring Americans and paying them a fair wage so they can better afford to buy your widget and which in return will lead to stronger sale figures for you. We are one of the biggest consumer markets in the world but this is quickly changing because Americans no longer can afford to buy even the cheep imports you keep sending over here from countries like China because the job they once had that let them buy this stuff is now being done by a 13 year old in a factory in Beijing. American families can not survive on Wal-Mart greeter salaries.

In the long run we need to elect better leaders and toss the bums out of Washington. I went to school to be a teacher and I have heard it said that there are those who can and those who teach. To some extent this is true. You would never ask an economics teacher with no cooperate training to take on a job as a CEO of a major fortune 500 company so why do we elect folks who have never been successful or even tested in private business to run a capitalist country. We need to look at how we pick our leadership. The leaders we choose should be the most successful and resourceful among us. We should never vote for someone who wants to be a career politician. We need term limits of four years max for every public servant. I would love to see the entire governing body from the fed level to the state and local turn over completely every four years. No one should every make their carrier as a politician. They should get into office do their job and get out. If we could find a way to turn our leadership over every four years I think we would see a much more efficient government. Their would not be time for corruption to grow (as much) and the government would have to be light on its feet in order to get anything done. There would not be time or room for so much bureaucracy. Politicians would know that there is a price to pay for screwing up. Because when their term is over they have to go back to the private sector and find a job. If the screw up to bad they may not have a job to come back to. We need a way to fire those that don’t preform and quickly fill vacancies. So every position would have a runner up. A person that was second in the election who could step in and do the job if the elected one can not cut the mustard. We need a ban on lobbying. We have representatives in Washington we don’t need a group of people who were not elected trying to influence our representatives to do their bidding.

Basically  we need to rethink our government from the top down. What we have now is not working. Not only do they not represent us, instead of listening to the desires of the American people, they spend most of their time trying to figure out how they can exert more and more control over every little thing we do. It is time for a tea party Boston Style.

Keep the "Change"