What can be done to help the US economy?
By martin cross, 18th Apr 2012 | Follow this author
| RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/2y6v15mk/
Posted in WikinutNewsPolitics
Something new for America will be required, an original approach – consumer power and democracy in action. The ordinary American needs to take his country back.
- Stop the US bleeding out
- Democracy in action
- Consumer power. Market forces.
- How to read bar codes to find country of origin
- The last resort
Stop the US bleeding out
Taxing the rich on their investment income just like it was salary is fair but is not going to ease the heavy burden on the middle and working classes who have provided the trillions of tax dollars spent on bailing out the banks and corporations and the ‘peace’ in Iraq, while not seeing a thin dime in return. The hemorrhage of manufacturing jobs, the economy’s life’s blood, must be stopped and some plasma injected.
A penalty should be levied on every job exported to cover loss of revenue to the Treasury and the cost of supporting the consequent new job-seeker (say $25,000). An incentive could be offered for every new manufacturing job created after it had lasted 18 months (to avoid spurious hiring).
Democracy in action
To persuade the elected representatives to turn their back on their plutocrat masters, to give up their free holidays in the Caribbean and pull their suffocated snouts out of the gravy trough, will take more than a little discontent from the suckered electorate. The representatives must fear that they will lose their own jobs in this stagnant economy. They must feel they have to save their own skins. In essence, they must fear that they may face a lynch mob back home if they do nothing to help those they are supposed to be representing.
Lobbying the elected representatives with emails is a good start but pressure can be applied within the system as well. Talk to the local Opposition party leader and explain what is wanted in terms of policies to help the local and national economy.
If the party machine is too rigid, form a new local party on a platform of job creation. Recruit like-minded people to go out and recruit other like-minded people. Make job creation and the economy a local issue. There is nothing like Independents getting elected to local government, State legislature, Capitol Hill to start shivers down the spines of the spineless.
Use social media (Facebook, Google+, etc.) to coordinate with other like-minded groups. It doesn’t take a large war chest when handled on a coordinated local level. Just enough to get the issues aired locally.
Democracy in action. Take your country back!
Consumer power. Market forces.
There is nothing a business pays more attention to than a fall in profits. The fat cats at the top fear that they will lose their fat cat positions.
Support your local economy. Buy food at farmers’ markets. Patronize local craftsmen. Use American products (if you can find them). Don’t buy goods imported from China (a Communist regime so by very definition: anti-American). If the goods aren’t labeled with country of origin, they are probably imported (see below for how to check the bar code).
If a company hides behind an overseas Customer Services department, it probably has something to hide. Don’t buy its goods. If you have a complaint about quality or service from a company, warn your friends not to buy from them and to tell their friends not to do so either. Companies that start drastically losing customers eventually have to start listening to consumers if they hope to stay in business.
Remember you don’t HAVE to buy stuff and if you are replacing stuff that broke down, don’t buy the same garbage to replace it. Wouldn’t you want to buy a product where you can actually drive to the head office to complain in person, if necessary. Try that in the People’s Republic of China.
How to read bar codes to find country of origin
The first two or three numbers of the bar code indicate the country of origin. Goods made in China have bar codes beginning with 690 to 695.
Goods made in the US or Canada have codes beginning with 00 to 13.
Other bar code country IDs are:
30 ~ 37 FRANCE
40 ~ 44 GERMANY
49 ~ JAPAN
50 ~ UK
57 ~ Denmark
64 ~ Finland
76 ~ Switzerland & Liechtenstein
471 ~ Taiwan
480 ~ Philippines
628 ~ Saudi Arabia
629 ~ UAE (United Arab Emirates)
740-745 ~ Central America
The code is not a cast-iron indicator of actual origin because it only shows where the code was assigned (the item may have come in from elsewhere before it got coded) nor is the list comprehensive but at least it provides a guideline.
The last resort
If you consider the economy a lost cause, you can always take a leaf out of the plutocrats’ book and either emigrate or lock yourself in your well-defended fortress while the broken machine flails itself to death.
Comments
18th Apr 2012 (#)
Some really good ideas here, martin. Thank you.
Reply to this comment