Government costs are Little League compared to the costs to sustain free enterprise. Take social security, which takes a large regressive tax from one’s payroll. Contrary to current thinking this money is immediately invested — or impounded? — in Treasury bonds yielding 5 or 6% at the present time because the Baby Boomers have not yet reached their retiring years. As a result the retirement coffers are still growing, though this trend has only a few more years to go. This is not all bleak; for, the public blocks out the positive aspect of social security beyond the obvious of lending dignity to old age and younger in need. It is impossible to imagine what would happen to the country if approximately $600 billion in social security and medicare distribution were removed from the economy. Of course, without it, approximately $400 billion would be saved annually and put back into the economy but not be targeted to those most in need; nevertheless, chances are, a good deal of it would go toward supporting agéd parents and hopefully charity to aid the poor. Unfortunately the figure would virtually be cut in half if the employer share was omitted.
Imagine the devastation this would cause in the medical industry without the lift Medicare generates. Arizona and Florida would become ghost states without the general retirement economy keeping them on the map. Social Security checks keep the economy rolling by enhancing state sales and real estate tax, creating jobs in construction, road work, tourism, countless restaurants and innumerable services, let alone nurses, doctors, and hospitals. Social Security is the nearest thing to what was once thought of job-creating public works in behalf of infrastructures.
Free enterprise is very good at creating jobs, too, particularly in the field of questionable middlemen, such as lawyers, brokers, bankers, advertisers, public relations consultants, tax experts, websiters, auto dealers, ad nauseam. The vast share of jobs, however, is owing to dedicated small businesses, not hindered by myopic shareholders and unconscionable CEOs. [I hope Google knows what it’s doing by entering into the market.]
Free enterprise, on the other hand, cannot be bothered in building updated oil refineries, speed rails — notwithstanding shuttles to Las Vegas — green-belt developments for the poor, modern schools, nor engage in environmental advances, particularly without a forward thinking government willing to subsidize such projects. Instead they indulge in sex and violence films, Reality TV [the latest “wife swapping”], undermining American labor by outsourcing, cell phone mania, Taj Mahals, casinos, humvees for muscle men or NASCAR Dads who have replaced the rugged Marlboro Man, and the oppression of women who are driven to frenzy by the diet and fashion moguls.
That said, free enterprise is good at better mousetraps, provided they are profitable. In all fairness — though on sweating backs of computer pioneers, subsidized by the government in the 60s and 70s — free enterprise made great strides in the computer industry albeit yet to be held accountable for all the glitches and inability to wipe out viruses. And who would ever dream as little as ten years ago that color laser printers would be half the cost of the original black and white? Under public pressure the free enterprise system has led to better cars but lacking imaginative design and real economy. Thanks to the Japanese, we have better definition and more reliable TV sets. Home appliances are in abundance and considerably cheaper than in the early days. Thanks to Walmart the Olsen twins are entrepreneurs — hopefully, they will help out Kmart. Digital cameras are the rage and the source of outrage in the Pentagon. In publishing, who could imagine that La Haye and Jenkins, co-authors of biblical hate and destruction, would be bigger than Stephen King?
It seems the truly important stuff will only materialize by regime change.
Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: May 19, 2004.