Obamaland Labor Day
This Labor Day, organized workers represent roughly seven percent of America's private-sector producers. Organized public-sector numbers are much higher, but they produce nothing. Yet the powers that really drive the American economy -- small business and entrepreneurs -- are being strangled out of existence.
It is quite apparent to the American majority that no amount of the Obama regime's wasteful, debt-inducing government spending on frivolous fantasies, wealth redistribution, borrowing beyond means, or repressive taxation will provide relief from the Great Recession. Yet, this grossly misused Keyensian charger employed by the regime as a magical talisman of economic policy is still being ridden hard, whip to flank, oblivious to reality.
The American labor force celebrating Labor Day 2010 -- minus the ten percent unemployed -- is no longer what it once was. Long gone are the mighty industrial giants of steel, textile, energy, and transportation and the once-justified organized labor movement they spawned. By a significant degree, they have been replaced by technological, services-related, and public-sector unions -- with government employees leading the way and growing in number. Lost in the scuffle is that segment of America that still produces and generates the bulk of the nation's wealth: small businesses.
Remember these truths the next time you hear Obama, the Democrat Congress, state-run media, or a union representative uttering economic propaganda:
Today, unions represent less than 14 percent of all U.S. workers, a 60-year low.
Small businesses, on the other hand, number in the tens of millions. Small business owners: Represent over 98 percent of all U.S. businesses; Create over 55 percent of all new innovations; Employ over 60 percent of all workers; and Produce over 50 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.
Most important of all, small business owners provide paychecks for more than 70 million workers and pay for them to enjoy a Labor Day holiday.
Which begs the question: Why is free market economics being abandoned and actively scourged by Obama and the Democrat Congress, unless the words "clean" or "green" are involved? Small businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors are literally being taxed and regulated into oblivion whilst "green" jobs to nowhere ingest billions critically needed in productive sectors that are withering away. Gleeful union executives and their squandered pension funds are the recipients of taxpayer dollars and government payola for political services rendered.
Even to the most obtuse, there comes a point -- after every statist scheme to jump-start the nation's economy has failed miserably -- when you must quit hitting yourself in the head with a hammer to make the pain stop. Unless, of course, you don't want it to stop.
Small businesses and the free market cannot generate corrections when the very government that should be assisting them is actively working to enfeeble them. It is important to remember that government jobs don't produce anything -- they erode wealth. Without private-sector dynamism, consumers are not able, at any point, to keep the economy moving on their own. They are either unemployed, nearing unemployment, or simply fearful of what may happen economically.
Instead, with the regime's acceptance of unlimited deficit spending as preferred national economic policy, there is an attitude of deranged detachment toward the tried and true, common-sense principle that you should not spend what you do not have.
Monday, if you want to speak with a member of your congressional delegation, check your area's Labor Day celebrations. The only thing more guaranteed than picnics and barbecue on Labor Day is face time by members of the ruling class.
Like rain, they will be there to ruin your day.
Hype and Chains for 57 more days.