by Allan Gainer
We live in a divided country in many respects. Many people believe that if they ignore what is happening in Washington DC, it won't effect them. It is what I call "head in the sand" emotion. These are the ones you hear in social talks that the only subject matter they discussed is what's happening on some reality show or how their life is out of control. They just go through the motions...waiting until Friday night to get totally drunk or heading to the lake to test out their new jet ski. Life in their bubble is fine and if they don't pay attention to what is outside their bubble, it doesn't exist. These are probably the same ones who are not reading this when they saw my title, because they can careless whether its capitalism or governmentism.
Now we have the two different classes of thinkers which is what you hear all over the media across our country. Each side yelling lies and very angry discussions heat the living rooms, bars, work areas and all areas of social engagement. I will give it my best effort to break it down to show the difference. I hope many who read this can understand the other side better.
When our forefathers founded our country, the majority of the people had their own small business and competed against each other for sales. It made each person strong in character and a strong drive to achieve success. Those who worked for them either felt strongly to help their boss to become successful, because they knew they would have job security or learned as much as they could before starting their own business. Naturally, they had to save money on their own to start this business.
This capitalistic environment gave our country a strong drive to be the best in foreign trade as well as domestic. What do I mean by competitive drive to be the best? By definition, capitalism is 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.
When you own a business, you take everything you have ever learned, accumulated materialistic goods and the hunger to dream big and apply it to your business. Running a business, everyday isn't a good day. Matter of fact, we have had more bad days than good days in the beginning. You have to have a resilient personality to ride out the low points. I would like to say business will only go up in sales and profits, but it doesn't. Instead it is like a roller coaster ride. There will be days you will feel invincible and other days you want to quit. When the feeling of quiting overrides your emotion, you strive to find your dream and derive that feeling when you were winning. Remember, don't quit.
When we first opened our bookstore, we were lucking to get one or two customers walking in the door per day. We had days when no one came in the store. We rode it out. After two months of business we had our textbook rush for the first quarter of college. We stocked up all the correct textbooks and when the first day arrived, we got 20 customers out of 9,000 students. (Years later at our peak we got over 2,000 students in our doors in the first week of rush). We advertised on campus and everything, but it didn't work. We took the hit and returned all the books and lost out in cost of shipping and wages. Then we had to ride it out the next four months out until the next rush. Lets say, we had a very bleak Christmas in 2004. When you own your own business, your personnel, taxes and vendors get paid before you do. There were months when we didn't get paid.
If you are used to living by pay check and expect it every week, you should never go into business. Stay working for someone else. Remember they are paying you, so they control the rules of business. It is their risk not yours. As long as they stay in business, you have a job.
This brings up a myth that many people believe in...government create jobs just as much as businesses. For government to run, they need money. They get this money through income tax, business tax, other taxes and inflation. Why did I include inflation?
When the federal government spends more money than they have, they have to borrow it from the Federal Reserves. (The Federal Reserves is owned by a small number of very wealthy bankers that are silent to the country, but not on the board. Believe me, Ben Bernanke takes his orders from this board not Congress as it was originally suppose to be. The Federal Reserves is not owned by the United States, but are supposed to be controlled by Congress. One fact, they have never been fully audited by Congress ever.)
Once Congress borrows the money from the Federal Reserves, not only do they have to pay an interest rate, but they borrow the money at the spending power it is at that time. Once this debt is established, the dollar becomes less valuable than it was prior to the loan. The difference of value of the dollar prior to the loan and after the loan is the form of tax. Congress does this a lot and hence why many people are very worried about the debt being out of control and why your spending power is decreasing daily.
On taxes, the majority of them come from business tax verses income tax. For example, employees pay 3.2% of their wage on Social Security tax and businesses pay 6.2% toward their Social Security tax. There are other taxes such as Business Occupational Tax, Labor and Industry Tax (both state and federal), and a slew of other taxes depending on what type of business you own. I don't want to go into how much taxes bar owners pay.
After government gathers all the funding from taxes in many forms, they are open for business. So they hire people to perform governmental jobs. When our country was founded, the Federal government was to keep the states united, open free trade between the states and other countries, hence why they believed in a strong military and keep continuity between the states like money. The Vice President didn't even get a pay check unless he was called upon by the president. States had more power and many programs came from the state level.
Now many people don't have the temperament of owning a business. They rather work for someone else and that is great. I am glad there are a lot of people who loves working for someone else. This is where we get a great pool of capable workers to join our business quest. Many people who fall in this category believe in capitalism, because they know without it, they won't have a job.
There are a very large group of people who feel like they have been defeated and lost any drive that they may of had years ago, but now just want was is owed to them. These are the people, if the government cut anything back, they would be afraid of losing their benefits. Right now, over 50% of the population are getting some form of entitlement from the government like food stamps or unemployment. This figure doesn't include Medicare or Social Security.
Many people feel that government does a better job of doing something over private business. These are the same who feel that large corporations are greedy and take everything they can from the little people. Government can't be greedy and will delivered better services because of their is not profit to be made. There is one little mistake they are missing and that is governmental kingdoms. Kingdoms is something I saw when I was mayor. Many people will give you all the reasons why they need more people or money. They will tell you if they don't get it, what will happen to the community and we don't want the elected officials to look bad to the public. It is as if the bottom will fall out if it doesn't happen. Try cutting any programs from them...they will scream bloody murder and will politicise it. This is what I have termed as kingdoms.
Kingdoms have gotten so big in government, we are now paying the price as citizens. Almost everyone agrees that we need to cut back, but what. We have such dependency on government, that it is ugly in any direction you to cut back on any one's kingdom. This is where lies the problem. I believe we all need to suck it up and cut back all across the board. I know I will have a hard time with the military cuts, because I believe in a strong military, but we need to cut there too along with defense spending. This goes with other programs where many can be merged or eliminated and bring down to state levels. We have a lot of redundancies in government.
However, I don't see any side taking this stand, so we are at a stalemate. We need some federal government programs such as Social Security, Medicare and a few other programs. Many programs can be handled at the state level...they are already paying for federal unfunded mandates, why not let them to own it. This goes with many issues brought down to the local levels. I can go case by case, but I have extended my blog for one day.
A strong capitalistic environment will give us many advantages where we don't have to look at government. Churches used to be very strong on programs for the needy, but lately their hands have been tied. We need to pull many laws and regulations away from businesses, churches and other local non-profit organizations so they can flourish. I would love to see many of us taking pride in what we do and keep our dreams alive as we strive for our goals for our families. I would like to see everyone making a difference in their community through volunteerism or owning their own business contributing to something positive to the citizens. Government in moderation is a good thing, but we are beyond that. Let's reel it in and bring strong capitalistic minds in action by destroying the myth business is evil...they are good to our communities and a strong financial supporter to government.
