The Dawn of Socialism
A good friend of mine in Finland had taken on a global powerhouse in their own backyard and won a market share battle. For a startup to have the audacity to take on the preeminent global leader was heroic enough, but to do it in a product with huge barriers to entry was even more inspiring. As is the custom in Finland, we were rotating between the sauna and cooling off with ice-cold vodka after a long day of work. I asked him what his greatest business challenge was.
He surprised me by saying it was getting factory labor. Finland’s social welfare policies allowed an individual to live a comfortable life without working. This created a difficult environment in which to grow a business, not to mention the enormous tax burden on those who did work.
At the time, I thought how different our countries were. We did have a social safety net. What we did not have was a system that allowed for the perpetual abuse of the public dole. Those programs that were relatively unlimited certainly did not provide for a comfortable standard of living.
America was the land of personal responsibility. It was a place that valued individual initiative and pull yourself up by the bootstraps success stories. Sure, there are some that need extended assistance for whatever reason and some that are just slackers, but America as a whole was the land of rugged individualism.
Today, my biggest challenge is finding employees. One would think on the tail of the Great Recession that would not be a problem. Reported unemployment is still pushing 10% and real unemployment is somewhat north of that. Based on salary surveys, our going rate is at a premium to the local average. The work environment is safe, friendly and clean.
Plenty of people apply for the positions. Virtually no one shows up for scheduled interviews. After discussing this situation with my staff and talking to others, there is only one conclusion. People are simply documenting their job search in order to maintain their unemployment benefits.
Our “jobless” recovery has been going on for about a year now. Politicians try to show their empathy to the public and keep their jobs by continuously extending unemployment benefits. The right has tried to stop this on budgetary considerations. No one has addressed the fundamental issue of what kind of country do we want to be. The result of any recession is that many workers find themselves having to accept positions that they previously would not have considered. In the absence of the pain of no income, some may feel that they can ride out hard times on unemployment until everything gets back to normal.
The problem is that normal changes and things are very likely never going to be as they were a couple of years ago. The other critical element is that there will always be new people entering the workforce. The individuals that have been out of work for over a year are going to find they are unemployable. New entrants are going to look more attractive. The long-term unemployed will be assumed to have lost whatever job skills they once had. Both the new entrant and the seasoned veteran will have to be trained. One comes as a clean slate; the other will carry whatever baggage has accumulated over the extended unemployment.
Instead of buying the votes of the unemployed and using the endless extension of jobless benefits to appease voters angered about the condition of the economy, it is time for some tough love. America needs to get back to work. The longer we wait, the harder it will be.
Politicians are playing fast and loose with our country’s values in an attempt to lock in large blocks of voters. We are on the verge of making a large segment of our population state dependent. That is not good for them or our country.
Richard Gabel
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