The robots in Disney’s “Robots” had the right idea. “See a need, fill a need.”
The state of the economy in the USA, and in fact the world, is in a sorry state. The unemployment rate in the USA is 9.1 percent, higher then it’s been in over a decade. And the unemployment has been high for the last two years, with few signs that it will be turning around.
We are conditioned, in the USA, that when a job ends, through whatever reason, you get on unemployment and either wait for your job to come back, or start looking for a new one. 62% of Americans want the government to create jobs.
There is another answer. We could create our own jobs. Be our own advocates. Turn this economy around on our own.
But there’s a catch.
Part of the problem is that governments have taken job creation out of the peoples hands. If children can’t run a lemonade stand on their front lawn without a $500 business licenses, then how am I, a single mom with no extra cash, going to make cookies and sell them to my neighbors?
There are a few good reasons for these laws. If food isn’t prepared right, or in a clean environment people can get sick. Items that are not made well/correctly can fall apart leaving the person with a broken item, and even cause injury or death. The CPSIA has also made it against the law to sell anything intended for use by children unless it has been certified lead free.
Certifying kitchens, getting business licenses, insurance, and lead testing costs money. Sometimes hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. In an internet age when you can simply make your item and put it online for others to find, where you need no storefront, no rent, no electricity, just a wi-fi connection and a few clicks on a computer… this is bordering on the absurd.
A bigger issue is the litigious nature of many in the USA. Over 90% of US corporations are currently in some form of court case, and they are expecting it to either raise, or stay the same. Many of the laws limiting job and product creation are in place to help stave off some forms of litigation.
Watch TV for a while and you may see an advertisement from a law firm asking people to call them if they took this drug, or saw a doctor for that problem, or, more recently, if they lost money in the stock market. The USA is the most litigious country on earth, and that isn’t a good thing.
Back in the 80’s we created a vision of lawyers. Fancy cars, big houses, jet setter life styles. They were exciting, and rich, the TV shows said so. And all you had to do was put in your time at school and you had an instant job, because everyone needs a lawyer, right?
Years later and we have over a million lawyers and only 300 million people. That’s a lot of lawyers, and they all need to make a living, so that means court cases. And after Erin Brockovich, and others like her, a lot of them are looking for that one class action lawsuit that will make them rich.
It is also in the best interest for corporations to keep the status quo. If you work for the corporation, and spend your money with them, then they get a bigger percentage of the pie. So do their marketers, advertisers, shippers, suppliers, accountants, lawyers, and everyone else along the supply chain. From the moment the oil earmarked to make plastic was pumped from the well, to the moment you buy the toothbrush at the retail outlet and take it home with you, hunderads of people in that chain made money off your purchase. That is why retail has to sell so many toothbrushes to make a profit.
To be fair, corporations employ an incredible amount of people. Most people in the USA work for a corporation. A lot of them are on the front lines, answering phones, selling merchandise, and making the bare minimum. All the while most of the money they earn by selling products goes into the company stock, and paying CEO salaries.
A person working from their home, creating items by hand, and selling them from a booth or online shop gets to keep all of the money they make. There are no middle men. You also get to set the price for your own merchandise, and pay yourself what you think you are worth.
The truth is, your neighbor still needs a sweater when she’s cold. They still need something good to eat when they are racing out the door in the morning. They still need socks, and wall decor, and all the other incidentals of life. They can get it from a corporation, or they can get it directly from the maker.
An increasing amount of people are choosing to buy handmade items. This is opening doors for millions of people to start their own business, or supplement their income. There are many websites dedicated to helping artisans sell handmade.
When you can grow vegetables in your back yard, and sell them directly to buyers at a local farmers market, or sell your hand made crafts and artisan goods online or craft fairs and boutiques, why is unemployment still so high?
Maybe you can’t knit or bake, but you can draw. Make cards. Maybe you can’t create a product, why not offer to mow lawns or fix cars? Maybe you could market someone elses craft, or help them make theirs, build a team. Be inventive.
Government can not fix the economy overnight. We need to work through this ourselves, take it out of corporate and government hands and a put the power back in our own lives.