Welcome to the September Housing and Jobs issue of NorthBay biz magazine. It’s hard to believe, but it’s almost time to begin planning the 2013 editorial calendar. By the time you’re reading this column, we’ll be assigning stories for our December Growth vs. No Growth issue. Unlike the daily newspaper, the culture of early deadlines is normal for the magazine industry. In compiling our editorial calendar, we endeavor to pick cover themes that address topics that have the greatest impact on the North Bay business community. One cover theme you’re sure to see again next year is Housing and Jobs. The reason is straightforward—jobs are inextricably linked to housing, and both are critical to the vitality of the region.
Inside, in addition to all the stories, you’ll find more than a dozen local columns and special features in this month’s magazine—information about local business that’s unavailable anywhere else. We welcome your comments and ideas on how NorthBay biz, the area’s only locally owned business publication, can best serve the business community in the North Bay.
Unless you were sequestered deep in a cave spelunking over the past few weeks, or only get your news from mainstream media, you’ve heard President Obama’s recent controversial campaign speech excerpt: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Consider that quote for a moment. Is it actually possible that a president of the United States of America doesn’t understand America? Or was it said trying to justify the confiscation of wealth? We’ll take from the successful and redistribute to others less fortunate because, you know, we’re all part of their success anyway. Establishing a link that success has little to do with merit certainly helps support the notion that it’s logical to confiscate the rewards of success if it wasn’t really earned in the first place.
To continue to quote the president from that same speech: “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.” And I guess it’s not a big stretch to think that way when his administration has been, from day one, in the business of picking winners and losers. For example: Coal industry—loser. We’ll enact regulations that shut your industry down. Green energy—winner. We’ll subsidize you endlessly regardless of results, if it advances our ideology. Practicality or efficacy is immaterial. Despite endless pledges to defend the middle class, if everyday Americans’ best interests aren’t being served, so what, implementing ideology into policy trumps all.
The current administration wields power ruthlessly, crushing the disfavored while boosting the chosen. Which laws will be enforced and which laws will be ignored are subject to the whims of the administration. So, if government policy alone can create success or failure, winners and losers, how is it wrong to say you didn’t succeed, that somebody else made it possible? That’s what the federal government wants. This is the world the progressives in power are hell bent on building, where all power is concentrated in government and its bureaucracy.
Increasingly, businesses that do succeed do so despite myriad government-imposed obstacles. Never in the history of the presidency has an administration been littered with so few people with private sector business experience. The vast majority, including the president, has experience with only tax-exempt, tax-subsidized and tax-supported institutions. With that kind of experience as a backdrop, no administration has interfered as much in private enterprise as this one. It hasn’t deterred them from trying to run entire heretofore-private industries—banking, automotive, energy, housing, health and medicine. The result of that interference speaks for itself.
In the early ’60s, 6 percent of Americans were on welfare. Today it’s 35 percent. Not counting Social Security and Medicare, 100 million Americans are receiving some sort of aid from the government. There are almost 9 million people on disability. The government is running ads for people to enroll for food stamps. What’s going on? This isn’t just change, it’s a complete departure from a long-ingrained American tradition—self-sufficiency. Welcome to the nanny state where equal opportunity for all has been trumped by equal outcomes for all. Individual initiative is disdained or even ridiculed outright.
There are numerous reasons why America has been characterized as the greatest country in the history of the world, but it can be reduced to just a few words—the American Dream—which simply means if you work hard you can achieve. And if you do fail, you can pick yourself up and try again. It’s up to you. Achievers used to be admired and emulated. It was the American way. Be smart, work hard, seize opportunity and ultimately take the risk. Many found success and many more failed, but in the process, all chased their version of this dream.
This administration’s vision for America isn’t what made this country great. It’s what makes France, France. The president seems to think that the competition that makes capitalism work is somehow unfair, maybe because the government can’t control outcomes. Traditional Americans view capitalism as an opportunity to improve with a free marketplace, not the government, as the final decision maker. A free market produces growth, jobs, opportunity and prosperity. Why take the risks and do the hard work if, in the end, your success is marginalized or collectivized?
“Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow to be milked. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.” —Winston Churchill
That’s it for now. Enjoy this month’s magazine. Is it November yet?
