George Rebane

### Three years ago when I noodled some numbers on US workforce and educational trends, the demonstrated illiteracy and innumeracy of our labor, and the acceleration of technology in these pre-Singularity years, an unexpected result stared back at me.  According to my analysis, about 70 million American workers, or almost half of our today’s workforce, would be unable to competitively sell their labor so as to maintain their quality of life.  Their fate would be to become wards of the state or riot.  In any event, they would live a few notches lower on the hog.  When I wrote and talked about this, the response was mostly divided between ho-hum and ‘not in America’.  And it still is.

Well, the International Monetary Fund is now beginning to take note of this effect and sees no abatement of the unemployment rate in the coming years for countries like the US, Spain, and other former stalwarts of the west.  In fact, the IMF warns that “We have to act quickly before unemployment becomes a structural problem.”  When that happens the warning extends to social disruptions – i.e. blood in the gutters. (report here)

IMF’s solution is for governments, led by the US, to throw tons of newly printed money to ‘stimulate and create employment’ while their economies still have the credibility to borrow.  However, their brain brigade can’t see beyond the ‘then what?’ after millions of unqualifieds are employed at make-work jobs that deliver a net cost to an economy instead of creating wealth.   This is already the growing nationwide cancer of buildings full of unionized state workers who serve primarily as a friction on the country’s productive sectors.  And our current efforts to create subsidized ‘green jobs’ (politically renamed ‘clean tech’) is a poster child for this stimulus approach.  Spain gave up on the subsidized green jobs after disastrous results to its economy; other European countries are following suit.  In California the progressives are repeating every lie in the book to get AB32’s global warming provisions fully implemented.  (Vote YES on Prop23)

The IMF is not the brightest bulb on the chandelier of world financial institutions, so when it finally recognizes something happening, it should be obvious to most.  But that’s not really true either.  The OMB, CBO, and the Republican Party give no hint that they recognize the coming of structural unemployment in America.  The Democrats, while not actually acknowledging the problem, are giving comfort to those who in their gut know they will never again be a competitive worker.  Their solution is the easy sell of class warfare through policies based on the Peter/Paul Principle.

### The overall cocoon-like behavior of the distracted voter is nowhere more evident than in recent polls that tell of how many people still have no idea about the Tea Party movement.  They must be feeling the economic pain (or not?), but can’t connect the dots that government and governance is somehow involved.  Broad based political disengagement may be our undoing.  It is always when the ignorant get surprised by the obvious that trouble starts in the streets.  My assessment is that individuals making up the overwhelming fraction of the electorate have their total political/civic knowledge base encased in three, maybe four, simple slogans.  And only about one in twenty know enough to have an extended conversation about their political beliefs and social values.  Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter is a sad corroboration of this.

Nevertheless, respected pollster Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports continues to believe “the collective wisdom of the crowd” trumping the ideological outposts of both parties to deliver “better results” for the country.  One of his recommendations is that Congress relegates itself into a policy generation outfit (like ‘here’s 2,000 pages of Obamacare’), then we let the country debate the policy over some months and vote up or down on it.  This is an extreme application of ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and would demolish the American republican form of governance.  Rasmussen is betting that those who do vote, as opposed to the entire electorate, will tend to inform themselves more if given a chance to vote on specific policies after a period of study and debate.  Maybe.  But it certainly didn’t work when the electorate voted for the Obama brand of Kool-Aid and then went ‘oops!’ when his socialist policies started rolling out.

### It has always been my belief that voting is the most sacrosanct civic responsibility in a democracy, especially in a republic like ours.  That is when we join our individual voice to become ‘we the people’, it is the highest holy of our secular holies.  There will come a time when I, and others as we age, will not be qualified to vote any longer.  We will, through a malady or the withdrawal that age brings, not know enough to cast a considered, let alone knowledgeable, vote.  I believe that at that time I should relinquish my franchise for the good of my neighbors and country.

The same argument can be made for the other end of life.  The overwhelming number of our come-of-age voters are abysmally ignorant of not only the issues, but of history, and the fundamental structure of our republic and its several states.  This observation counsels some demonstration of voter competency before being given a ballot.  Our Founders were much concerned about this and rested in the hope that the states would come up with solutions.  We recall Ben Franklin’s cautious admonishment when asked what kind of government had been forged – “A republic, if you can keep it.”  We are not keeping it.

The qualification of voters beyond mirror fogging has become an alien concept, and today makes middling minds go ballistic.  While many methods suggest themselves, the problem is that no one has come up with a broadly acceptable way of qualifying voters.  And that aim is pretty much unachievable when one political ideology has based its entire governance strategy on the readily available votes of an under-educated core of malleable sheeple.

### The Cato Institute ran a full page ad on downsizing government in some of the country’s newspapers today (see figure).  It highlights another in the cascade of lies this President has told the country.  You can see a readable version of it here.

### Former Sec Treasury George Schultz and four other financial heavyweights have written a how-to manual for getting the country off the current road to financial and national disaster.  You can get an idea of where we’re heading from the nearby bar graph and then read the full article ‘Principles for Economic Revival’.  Please note the total fraction of the GDP that the federal government will sop up in taxes, and this does not include state and local taxes and regulatory fees.  Recall that the historical postwar federal bite has averaged just under 20% of GDP.  I diagnose all people who don’t give a second thought to this as being in understandable shock and awe, but do try to come out of it for a bit on 2 November.

### The states are beginning to discuss a ‘repeal amendment’ to the Constitution as a response to the unconstitutional and insane spending legislation coming out of Washington.  First proposed by Virginia, this simple and to-the-point amendment would read –

Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.

More here and here.

One thing both sides can agree on about this election – at this mid-term the voters will decide the fate of America for decades to come, this is not a business-as-usual election.  The only difference for conservatives is that if they win control of Congress, it will only be winning a battle and not the ideological war – the socialists will be back again and again.  If the socialists win this time and maintain control of Congress, it will be game over, period.