Bringing home the bacon. Getting the job done. Busting your butt to survive in today's world, whatever you'd like to refer to it as. We all need to do it...no, we all HAVE to do it...there isn't a choice, is there?However, there's something relatively new out there (about 11 years I believe it's been around now) that's tripping up some really good, talented, well-educated, productive and decent people from getting work, and there appears to be no time limit on how long it can haunt you, now, thanks to the onward march of technology.
I'd like to start right out by throwing this directly into your faces. I've been hearing an awful lot of complaints about people on welfare, Section 8, SNAP (food stamps), FIP, etc., of late, easily twice as much as I used to. I hate to tell you fine, law abiding, hard-working people this, but whereas there are some who really do take advantage of the system, there are ten times that amount who really have to be or need to be on it. Even worse yet, it's YOUR fault they get and need this assistance! Even more horrifying than this, the numbers are only going to go up from here. And I'm afraid that the blame for it rests on all of us.
UPDATE: I may have been misinformed, America. It would appear that our President, Mr. Obama, may be the REAL reason for increased handouts. It seems this was a preamble to something that's upcoming on our horizon: Mr. Obama is going to ask for a third term as president, and, by giving away more and more, is attempting to be come so wildly popular that we'll overlook Article 2 of the constitution and re-elect him for yet ANOTHER term as president. It's said, also, that WE'RE going to push him and beg him to do it!!
Let's start with the biggest offender, the King of all our problems...capitalism. Capitalism, as defined in Mirriam-Webster's Dictionary, says this: An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. Capitalism was a good thing back in the day, of this there was no doubt. There was one ingredient however that would come along that none of us counted on as a spoiler in the mix. Back in the day, competition was friendly, prices were reasonable, and no one was given to hoarding business or money over another. Local businesses were everywhere, and the barter system (a system that is now in danger of extinction) was in effect where money wasn't.
What's that sour-tasting ingredient you ask? Why greed, of course. For Americans in our day and age, enough is never enough. We are easily the most unsatisfied generation of people that have ever occupied the planet, right along with the rest of the generations in this last century. Almost exactly 100 years ago, to be exact. And whom do we have as our most shining example in greed, our tutor whether we want the teaching or not? Our government started us on our destructive path down the road to greed and corruption, in 1913, when they greedily passed and put into affect the 16th Amendment, mandating that all U.S. citizens pay income tax. This we can firmly plant our finger on as the defining time that greed crept into our lives as U.S. citizens.
The other half of the problem lies in our propensity to roll over and go with the flow, roll over and take it, and roll over and swallow it. We have been trained of late to be a nation of sheep, also by government, mostly, and by the media, more than likely as they are influenced by government to keep fear forever instilled in us. What's more, we don't have TIME to fight things anymore...hell, we barely have time to drop off the kids at daycare, let alone fight some stupid fine or nuance of law we don't agree with. Not only are we in constant fear of our very lives, we're afraid for our children, our retirement, our money, our safety, our jobs, and our homes.
A good, small example of this would be a simple vehicular misdemeanor. Let's use the seat-belt law and ticketing for the same. I've mentioned this before, I'm sure you remember. When seat belts were not always required, they tried to instill fear to make us use them. Commercials showing people getting into accidents, and while they used seat belts and didn't use them were plentiful. When that didn't work, the cry went up to government to do something about it. The Mandatory Seat Belt Law for all states was born. When the law was to go into effect, we all said "This is a good thing...it'll do a lot more good than not"...we rolled over. Don't lower the speed limits, don't crack down on drunk drivers, don't demand that car makers make their cars safer or come up with other ways to make it more safe to drive, take the easy way out...put in on us. Why? Because we won't fight it, as a people. We don't have the balls. We created a monster in our government and gave them the power, and in order to stay in business, they keep us in fear of everything, thereby creating a nation of roll-overs. Anyway, the day came and I just happened to be out when it went into effect, at midnight, and I got one of the first tickets. $21 for the infraction. Today? $85. Why? Because we raised it to $30, issued it to some lucky citizen, and they rolled over and it. Then $40. Then $50. Then $60. Then $65. You get the picture. As is the way with all fining, if you roll over and pay instead of stand and fight, well then you have to expect that eventually the "government" will say "OK, so what can we do to bring in MORE revenue? Hey, I know!", and your parking tickets go up from $5 to $20.
The roll-over effect seems to trickle over to every facet of our lives. They raise taxes? We roll over. They reduce deductions? We roll over. They pass law? We roll over. They beat down the wage hike? We wait till they bring it back again, some three to ten years too late. They raise insurance premiums? We roll. Am I wrong? Oh, sure, some fight. Some, a lot fewer, I'm sure, even win on occasion. Mostly though? We're trained from an early age to keep our mouths shut and just pay up. Shut our eyes, and deal. Muddle through. Get over it. Uh-Uh. Not this horse. No longer.
So as the insurance, medical and legal fees continue to skyrocket, and the consumer price index continues to out-pace our rate of pay increases, minimum wage increases and greed? Well, greed just continues to be allowed to win out. Because of this, we sell out our citizens in favor of cheap labor employee imports that are allowed into our borders daily, and also by exporting jobs overseas. All of this contributes to the extinction of the middle class. Turn that finger around America. As hard as it might be to swallow, it's all on you. You continue to roll over and let government have their way, so welfare is up and jobs to be had are down.
Still not convinced? Let's now move on to the fact that the way we do business, the work that we do, the products that are most important to us, the products we use, and the way we use them are 200% different then they were even 20 years ago. Think about 30. 40. 50. Let's stop there. 50 years ago, we drove everywhere we wanted to go. Oh sure, there was a good crowd for airports, but we didn't need to go too far, our business was here. Our shop fronts were here, our companies were here, our workers were here, and our products were here. If they weren't here, we brought them here. Telephone use was restricted to millions of pay phones, or office/company/personal home phones. Cars maybe got 12 mph, but we didn't care. The insurance business had yet to become abused, so rates went for a song. A nice new home was around 35,000. Gas was 39 cents a gallon. Federal spending was around 235 billion, and the national debt was at 466 billion. The consumer price index was 44.4, and inflation happened at around 7.6%. Today, your cars can do upwards of 50 mpg...but then a gallon of gas is around $3.51 on the average today, so they had best. An airline schedule is your bread and butter, if you don't know that, you're screwed. All your business, everyone you do business with, everyone who wants to do business with you is overseas...thank God for the cell phone and the PC, or you'd be broke just getting around at today's airline ticket prices. Today's consumer price index is a whopping 234.6, even though our current inflation rate is only 1.7%. A new home will net you around $270,000. And oh my God, the spending, and our debt? 3.4 and 3.8 trillion dollars...and quickly growing. In 1913, you could buy as much with the dollar as you can today with $23.63. Today you can buy...a dollar's worth. Our dollar today is worth just that, although I seriously believe that it's really worth a lot less than that. If I paid $20.00 for an item 50 years ago? That item today would be $105.00. Our cumulative inflation rate in 50 years was 426%. And the whopper, a new car, which averaged $3,650 back 50 years ago has leaped nearly ten times that amount to $31,500.
But here is the stuff that's really killing us. Product quality has been replaced with "How much can I get for this product today while it's hot, before people start realizing that it's a piece of crap and will fall apart on you in about a quarter of the time it used to?" Companies that once thrived because of customer service are now sending their jobs overseas in favor of employees who barely speak English, but are dedicated hard workers and who'll take half of the pay we do.
Also, since the American dream began disappearing for most folks in the 70's, a whole new race of thieves, grifters, con-artists, scammers and system abusers have risen from the ashes to drive up the prices of everything; from health and general insurance rates to large product price hikes. Our love of the lawsuit has produced a nation of dog-eat-dog citizens. Any way we can make an extra dollar has long overshadowed most of our moral compasses, as is apparent when leaders of companies totally destroy people's lives, retirements, and clean out their customer's bank accounts, just so they can spend a few weeks living it up for just a little while at full speed before they're jailed for life. People who used to respect us, now hate us. Countries that went out of their way to just rub shoulders with us, with the hope that some of it would rub off on them, are now conspiring together to destroy us. Gun control is totally out of hand, and our arrogance in thinking we're still number one in everything is truly going to bite us back in the ass one day, and you can't convince me it won't be soon. God and our base religious beliefs have been pushed completely out of our educational and personal lives, and I'm sure he long ago turned his back on us accordingly.
Why are things the way they are today? I bet I can draw a line from each and every one of us. We're the most selfish, arrogant, non-feeling, non-caring introverts as can be fashioned from a piece of human flesh.
What happened to the theme of this post you ask? Oh yeah. I almost forgot that little pebble in the middle of the avalanche of rocks I kick-started, didn't I?
Here, then, is an example of great American business thinking. 11 years ago, I stole something from Sears, at around $20. It was the only thing ever to be on my record. It was an awful time in my life, and the state of Iowa promised me a good future if, in my moment of unemployment, I would sacrifice 7 months out of my life to educate myself in a massively needed profession at DMACC. I jumped on it. It was in the field of IT, something I was already big on, so yes, of course I did. Unfortunately, while you're attending school full time, it was the kind of study that required an awful lot of study time, and working part time was even strenuous. One day, the instructor informed us that we would need to purchase writable DVD's for the class at a time when these were just hitting the market, and very expensive. Since I had no job, I chose the dark path of retail theft for a whole 69 seconds...and got caught. Managing to survive this minor infraction, I graduated my course, and attempted to get a job in my newly learned profession. At this time, a new standard at a lot of American companies had begun to be a rule of thumb. If you had ANY kind of theft charge on your record, you would be unable to be hired for a time of 7 years.
Okaaaay...I decided, after many frustrating interviews, to diversify my talents (which were many by this age) and start my own business. I limped along doing this for quite some time, but knew in my heart of hearts that I would get a career that suited me once that damned 7 years was behind me. Oh contrair. Like my experience with the drinking age (when I turned 18 they raised it to 19...and just before I hit that, they raised it to 21), they upped the ante to a period of 10 years. I finally reached that 10 years around 2 years ago. When I once again tried to get employment, I began to hear the word "Unhirable". Except this time? It was LIFETIME. Are you serious??
Now look here America. We're not talking about a career criminal here. We're talking about a human being, who was weak for a brief moment, and made 1 mistake. Not murder. Not Enron. $20 worth of DVD's. Not only that, but I was so adamant that I would never experience that shame again that I made do for ten very long years waiting for a job that would never...EVER come.
I remember, when I first heard the 7 year standard, my first interviewer told me the tale of someone who has to be in a lot worse shape than I am. A friend of his attended one of the most prestigious law schools in the U.S. In the usual frat fashion, his brothers and he decided to jokingly deprive their competitive neighbors of their prized frat rug. The rival frat, when asked by the police who could have been responsible, pointed their fingers squarely at the neighboring hoodlums. When the police confronted the offending fraternity, they admitted their guilt and offered a standard apology, and returned the rug. Not satisfied with this, the leader of the frat insisted that some kind of charges be pressed, and slapped the friend with 5th degree theft, a shoplifting charge in most states, along with others besides the friend believed to have masterminded the prank. Having graduated law school, this friend (and others of that group, surely) had tried to get jobs in a great many fields and has suffered a similar fate. If nothing else, I feel for this young professional, if for naught else, for the tens of thousands of dollars in tuition he can't pay back, and for the loss of a lifetime career he had obviously worked very hard for at his young age.
Here's what I truly dislike about this. If I were to go down to the state/county agency that handles my crime record, and ask for my record, there's nothing. I get a blank piece of paper. Thanks to technology, however, this stuff can remain on databases AROUND THE EARTH for eternity!! It will show up when national companies, whose only purpose is to dig up dirt on people, are paid to find that information. So then, it would appear that the wrong-doers of the world...about 99% of us, at one time in our lives or another, will be blamed and judged by what they did, even once, forever. It sounds like I'm bitter, and yes, I am. It sounds like I'm exaggerating with that 99% maybe? I don't think so. People can SAY they've never done a wrong thing in their life, but we all know better, I would hope. The thing that makes me angriest about this, is that you practically eliminate the possibility of reformation with things like this. Criminals, even one-time caught types, will be forced to return to a life of crime by things like this.
This, of course, is what it all boils down to. This "standard", if you can call this a reasonable standard, was implemented, I'm sure, simply as a consolidated effort to curb retail theft. Up the ante to what it is today, 11 years later? You're now doing just the opposite. Say it wasn't someone as talented and innovative as I am, a fella with real survival skills and a good head on his shoulders. Say instead we're talking about a career shoplifter scared straight. He gets caught, and the theft charges on his record cause a constant deferment, and pigeon-hole him as undesirable for employment. What do you think that person is going to think of first? Wait for 7 years, 10 years or even his whole life to go down the drain before he can work again? I don't think so. If it were me? Not only would I go directly back to that life, I would do it with vengeance on the brain. I'd probably double my efforts. You have to support yourself, and most likely a family too. You have narrowed this person's options to crime or crime. If he won't steal again, it's ALL GOOD, there's other avenues. Identity theft, prostitution, drug dealer...pick a life of crime, any life of crime. And hey, if you're affluent enough, you might someday manage to start your own multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme and clean naive investors out of their life savings!
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