Who Made This Economic Mess

Our nation is facing the worst economic disaster since the great depression, but where should we place the blame for it? As Americans, we enjoy pointing the finger, and both sides of the aisle will steadfastly accuse the other of being the proximate cause, and both with sound arguments. As I see it, the cause rests squarely on the shoulders of the Democrats AND the Republicans.

Republicans have traditionally been the party of big business and the wealthy, which often go hand-in-hand. The wealthy own the businesses, comprise the upper echelon of the management and own stock in the corporations. What ever is good for the business is good for their wallets, and the Republican party subscribes to that.


Democrats, on the other hand, follow a different tact. Where Republicans represent the wealthy, Democrats represent the poor. The Republicans are the owners of the businesses, but the workers are often Democrats. Both are responsible for the mess we're currently in, but they have added to the problem from different angles.

As representatives of the worker, Democrats often stand up for unions. Union workers enjoy good salaries and benefits due to their ability to band together and make demands of the business owners. While no one can argue that every American deserves a clean, safe workplace and to be paid a livable wage, unions often go above and beyond what is reasonable. Their logic is that if the businesses can afford to pay executives exhorbitant salaries, then the workers should be compensated highly as well.

This sounds all well and good, but there are problems with it. In the first place, the cost of these wages and benefits are passed on to the consumer. In the second place, mediocrity is being rewarded. Union workers are often compensated based solely on the fact that they are already employed, not on anything they have done to make themselves worth more. While anyone can spend the money and time to go back to school and get a degree, many union workers choose not to, but are still demanding wages exceeding those paid to someone with a degree.

The Democrats don't see this as a problem, and continue their union affiliations. If the legislature were to come out with a ceiling based on job and education level, the unions would have a fit, but such a measure would have done much to prevent the economic downfall in which we currently find ourselves.

The Republicans, on the other hand, continue to support the business owners. Years ago, as union wages rose the businesses decided they needed to cut costs, and one of the first places they did this was with their own operators. At one time in this country, when you called a company a person answered the phone and routed your call appropriately. Now you get a recorded voice and you must enter numbers to let the machine know where your call should be sent. If you don't fall within the parameters set up by the creator of the system, your call often goes unanswered.

All of these operators lost their jobs. Note that these were not the highest paying jobs, but they were jobs. People had them and relied upon them to pay their bills. Without these jobs, a segment of our society became unproductive, and their spending was curtailed. This, however, was not enough for the business owners. Other jobs were to follow. More and more businesses outsourced their Human Resources departments, their Customer Service departments, their Sales departments and their IT departments and much of this outsourcing was done in foreign countries. More Americans lost their jobs to the greed of the corporations, and more people had less money to spend.

Our economy has fallen apart and in order to rebuild it we need reform. Real reform. We need jobs at all levels, and those jobs must pay respectful wages and benefits. Those jobs should not pay exhorbitant wages. If someone wishes to better themselves, they should do that with education and training, not union affiliation.

At the same time, corporations must limit executive salaries. The executives of all corprorations should be paid no more than five times the salary of the lowest paid person in the company. All other benefits should be the same for all employees, be they executive or worker.

These reforms would not only end this recession, but they would ensure the prevention of another. In order for these reforms to work, Democrats and Republicans must work together. I wonder if I will ever see that happen.