Economic Future?

What are the consequences of no action concerning our economic future?

For the first time in our nations history, we find record deficits in our budget far into the future, record setting loss of jobs, endless foreclosures for homes, financial meltdown on Wall Street that infects all of our economy and every bit of this dilemma is because of unabridged non-scrutiny of the various transactions taken by all financial institutions.

How can “We as a nation” resolve this dilemma? First by understanding what true capitalism means. As defined in the Oxford English dictionary capitalism is “an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods depends on invested private capital and profit making”. With that under consideration, how is it that our government now owns so much of this supposed private debt that once belonged to the “private capital” that had been used to further profit taking?

We need a better outlook than this type of recurring greed in corporate governance. One of the questions at this point is “how can we fix this?” Secondly, “Can capitalism be legislated?” The first question is the directive and the second question is the answer. Under the assumption that the capitalism is an economic theory then “yes” we can legislate capitalism. Doing so, however, may prove very difficult.

First, there are two types of companies in this plan, publicly held companies which means that if any shares of common or preferred stocks are let to be traded then they would fall under deeper scrutiny than complete privately held companies such as sole proprietorships with no publicly traded stock. The first group being the publicly traded companies and corporations would have all executive pay bound to the minimum wage legislatively. By simply doing this the executives of these companies would have incentive to make not just themselves richer but also the entire workforce as well as the company itself. The second group of privately held companies would have greater leeway to pay their executives higher wage and earnings packages at the discretion of its governance practices.

We as individuals have no say in this process except through our elected officials and few of us ever talk or attempt to talk with them. I suggest that anyone that would like to see true change in the way things are done need to involve their elected officials with each individuals concerns. As more and more people contact their representatives and senators asking them to look into the future and see the dilemma we are facing and act to correct the problems as time goes on.

The playing field needs leveling in a vast way. The disproportionate levels of income in our nation leaves little doubt that the top 10% in our country controls 90% of any wealth to be had. This is one of the largest reasons that we need better laws concerning the executive pay excesses of the past. Basically, we need to call for an immediate cease and desist order from any further excesses in corporate pay packages currently in effect. After the dust settles from this, once again the executives could state in a more down to earth tone what pay package would be needed to “live normal lives” like every one else without the excesses.