Jobs & Elections
So far, it seems that each pol is out to convince the public that he (or she) hates and fears the free market more than any other pol. I am appalled. (This is a bipartisan activity; I still haven't forgiven ’W' for the steel tariffs.) Now hear this: All voters should be required to read the article, "Peter Drucker Sets Us Straight," in the January 12, 2004 issue of Fortune magazine.
No matter who is doing the measuring, Peter Drucker would be on any Top 10 list of influential business consultants/writers. The article tells who Drucker is and why he's important. I'll just point out that the man gave us the phrases "privatization" and "management by objective."
Drucker is 94 years old now, and I approached this article wondering what the old man had left to say. I had forgotten that only a few years ago he was called — in a Forbes magazine article — "still the youngest mind" in the country. The current Fortune article left me stunned, as has everything else I have read by or about the man.
The pols rant and rave about us exporting jobs. Says Drucker, "Nobody seems to realize that we import twice or three times as many jobs as we export."
That statement knocked me for a loop. Drucker's logic is simple and irrefutable. If we export jobs when we open a factory in Asia, then just as certainly we are importing jobs when Japan and Germany open factories in Alabama. Damn! That hit me like a thunderbolt.
Drucker goes on to explain that we are actually "…exporting low-skill, low-paying jobs but are importing high-skill, high-paying jobs." He points out that the U.S. industries "that are moving jobs out of the U.S. are the more backward industries," and that "…the U.S. remains the cheapest place in the world to produce for many of the more advanced industries."
Worried about unemployment? Drucker points out that we "have the highest proportion of our population in the workplace by far than any other country in the industrial world." He explains that we have the greatest opportunity for educated workers, with "basically no unemployment for college graduates."
Find out why Drucker believes the way we measure productivity is out of date and why productivity is probably higher than we think. Find out also the one thing that does worry him about our economy.
Then, please, tell other people about this article. The pols tell the public that we are in serious trouble and only they can save us. It just ain't so. We the people are doing quite well. It's guvmint that needs to be straightened out.
