September 10, 2010 in Opinion, Letters

Business wrong model

 

The writer of “Curb government appetite” (Letters, Sept. 6) wants government to behave more like business. Which business? BP, Exxon, Enron, Lehman Brothers, General Motors, or the 17 percent of small businesses that repeatedly default on multiple SBA loans?

We don’t need government to emulate those businesses. That’s what it’s been doing since the Reagan “revolution” of 1980.

Big business took over our government in the ’80s and ’90s. Milton Friedman’s cynically titled “Free to Choose” defined the strategy for market dominance and concentration of wealth that has been executed expertly over the last 30 years. Instead of regulating the marketplace, our government has become the stereotypical “cop on the take.”

This “business-friendly” environment has resulted in the export of our manufacturing sector and millions of family-wage blue-collar jobs that had served as the ladder up to the middle class. All that is gone now, thanks to governments that “acted more like a business.”

As the letter writer suggests, we need grown-ups to take over. Maybe that’s not the current crop of incumbents; but it’s certainly not the neocon artists who got us here in the first place. We need Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party, not Dick Armey’s tea party.

Jim Wavada

Spokane

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Two comments on this story so far. Add yours!

  • Dazzeetrader11 on September 10 at 2:09 a.m.

    1. What evidence in there that Bill Clinton let big business take over the government?
    2. If that happened why did the economy flourish for 25 years till Obama?
    3. Think the jobs left because of unions asking/ demanding too much?

  • Navydad on September 10 at 7:46 a.m.

    Why are jobs going overseas?

    I was watching a story on CNN recently about people that are under-employed. The fellow that was featured is now working for $16.00 per hr or so at a national hardware chain, after being laid off from his previous job as an autoworker. He had been out of work for quite some time before finally finding his current job. You could see the pain on his face, and he was almost in tears.

    I felt really sorry for the guy…. Right up to the part where it was reported that his previous job, a union one, was a heavy equipment operator… making $130,000 a year. He didn’t even think he could retire at 56 like he had planned. Poor baby.

    I think unions do have their place. They should be there to make sure workers are safe, and making a decent wage for the work done. Notice I said decent. Too often, they hold the company hostage and end up receiving astonomical concessions.

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