Biggest thing we make in U.S. is government
Let’s make something, shall we?
I’ve been reading an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal that jives with something I wrote a few months back. We are no longer a productive nation. This is what the article says: “Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.”
The government doesn’t produce a product. It doesn’t export goods. It simply grows, costing taxpayers more and more each year. The more you feed the beast, the bigger and lazier it becomes.
Let’s face it, people (like me) want to have cozy office jobs, working on a computer without taking the risks or physical exertion that goes with making, marketing and selling a product. It seems our idea of economic development is to lure business and industry here. What ever happened to starting homegrown businesses?
I would say this problem has direct bearing on the nation’s obesity problem. We sit at a computer all day. We come home and spend several more hours surfing the Internet, watching TV or playing video games. It is any wonder that the highest paid people today are entertainers, athletes and the nerds who design the cool gadgets we watch them with?
Note that I said the nerds who DESIGN the gadgets. We’re too cheap and lazy to make them here. We get them from China and its neighbors where they make them faster and cheaper. It used to be that all the cool stuff came from Japan. Once the Japanese got financial clout it caught America’s consumerism disease.
I take a small degree of comfort and pride in knowing that as a journalist I am providing a service and producing a product. Still, there are times I wish I were working outdoors or making something with my hands. The more time I spend with my Scouting sons, the more I recall how fun it was as a kid to do leather craft, wood carving and the sort. I used to love to cartoon and draw pictures.
There are times I’d like to have my childhood imagination back again. I was big into comics, Star Trek, The Lone Ranger, and old monster movies as a youngster. I would draw creative pictures or role-play adventures with my friends. I used to sit in class at school and daydream some fantastic stories.
Now that I’m grown up, my mind is filled with things like, work, church, kids, wife, making ends meet, mowing the lawn, cleaning house, washing dishes and laundry, keeping cars running, and so on and so on (and not necessarily in that order).
While I love my job and have enjoyed a long career, there have been times when I have daydreamed about what I’d like to do if I ever left the Fourth Estate. All of my adult life I’ve had friends telling me I should be a teacher, but I haven’t felt that calling. Many times I’ve desired to get into Christian ministry, but that requires an education I can’t afford.
Sometimes I think it would be fun to design theme restaurants. Imagine dining on the Black Pearl, eating in the Great Hall at Hogwarts or doing lunch in the Batcave. Other times I’d like to have my own curio shop. I’d want to sell stuff ideal for this area, such as cowboy/western, pirate/sea, and space/science fiction collectibles and memorabilia. Houston is kind of a nexus for all three genres. (By the way, I’m claiming intellectual copyright on my ideas!)
There is also a part of me that wishes I had followed my childhood dream of being a forest ranger. I love being outdoors working with animals and such. I’d also like to be a farmer or rancher, though I don’t have the education or money for that. Even running a dude ranch sounds like fun.
Alas, for now those are just dreams. Interestingly, not a one of those occupations produces a product, at least not one that could be exported. And being a teacher or forest ranger would put me on the government dole. That would kind of defeat the purpose of my thought process here. I guess it’s my hope that in some way this column will inspire the entrepreneurial spirit in someone. Maybe we can once again be a nation of makers instead of takers.
So, what do you say, shall we make something?
I’ve been reading an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal that jives with something I wrote a few months back. We are no longer a productive nation. This is what the article says: “Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.”
The government doesn’t produce a product. It doesn’t export goods. It simply grows, costing taxpayers more and more each year. The more you feed the beast, the bigger and lazier it becomes.
Let’s face it, people (like me) want to have cozy office jobs, working on a computer without taking the risks or physical exertion that goes with making, marketing and selling a product. It seems our idea of economic development is to lure business and industry here. What ever happened to starting homegrown businesses?
I would say this problem has direct bearing on the nation’s obesity problem. We sit at a computer all day. We come home and spend several more hours surfing the Internet, watching TV or playing video games. It is any wonder that the highest paid people today are entertainers, athletes and the nerds who design the cool gadgets we watch them with?
Note that I said the nerds who DESIGN the gadgets. We’re too cheap and lazy to make them here. We get them from China and its neighbors where they make them faster and cheaper. It used to be that all the cool stuff came from Japan. Once the Japanese got financial clout it caught America’s consumerism disease.
I take a small degree of comfort and pride in knowing that as a journalist I am providing a service and producing a product. Still, there are times I wish I were working outdoors or making something with my hands. The more time I spend with my Scouting sons, the more I recall how fun it was as a kid to do leather craft, wood carving and the sort. I used to love to cartoon and draw pictures.
There are times I’d like to have my childhood imagination back again. I was big into comics, Star Trek, The Lone Ranger, and old monster movies as a youngster. I would draw creative pictures or role-play adventures with my friends. I used to sit in class at school and daydream some fantastic stories.
Now that I’m grown up, my mind is filled with things like, work, church, kids, wife, making ends meet, mowing the lawn, cleaning house, washing dishes and laundry, keeping cars running, and so on and so on (and not necessarily in that order).
While I love my job and have enjoyed a long career, there have been times when I have daydreamed about what I’d like to do if I ever left the Fourth Estate. All of my adult life I’ve had friends telling me I should be a teacher, but I haven’t felt that calling. Many times I’ve desired to get into Christian ministry, but that requires an education I can’t afford.
Sometimes I think it would be fun to design theme restaurants. Imagine dining on the Black Pearl, eating in the Great Hall at Hogwarts or doing lunch in the Batcave. Other times I’d like to have my own curio shop. I’d want to sell stuff ideal for this area, such as cowboy/western, pirate/sea, and space/science fiction collectibles and memorabilia. Houston is kind of a nexus for all three genres. (By the way, I’m claiming intellectual copyright on my ideas!)
There is also a part of me that wishes I had followed my childhood dream of being a forest ranger. I love being outdoors working with animals and such. I’d also like to be a farmer or rancher, though I don’t have the education or money for that. Even running a dude ranch sounds like fun.
Alas, for now those are just dreams. Interestingly, not a one of those occupations produces a product, at least not one that could be exported. And being a teacher or forest ranger would put me on the government dole. That would kind of defeat the purpose of my thought process here. I guess it’s my hope that in some way this column will inspire the entrepreneurial spirit in someone. Maybe we can once again be a nation of makers instead of takers.
So, what do you say, shall we make something?
posted by Joe Southern | 10:16 AM
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