| By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. We shareholders of the United States of America, Inc. are deeply worried, perplexed, baffled and, yes, angry about our persistent unemployment rate, which continues to hover around 9%, with no end in sight. Experts, in fact, once so quick to offer their profound economic predictions based on their experience and study of past malaises are now gun shy, having been wrong so often; as a result their predictions are more opaque than ever, seeming to say much, but after explication saying absolutely nothing at all. Into this breach the brightest and most well meaning folks have entered... unwilling to be patient a minute longer and anxious to show that American people can solve America's problems, even this draining one of unemployment. And so today, we celebrate what our never-say-die countrymen are dreaming up for bona fide jobs in the hopes that you, too, will join the parade and keep those grand ideas coming, timely and in detail. For the appropriate music to accompany this article, I have selected the theme song of the film "9 to 5" which was released in 1980. Dolly Parton knocked this one out of the park, the bounciest tune ever composed on the unjust, unfair, and unending tricks, twists, and turns of the world of work. Ironically, most of the over 9% of unemployed Americans would positively jump at these jobs today... no matter the drawbacks... such is the level of our national desperation, apprehension, fear, and anxiety and why we need a Grand Alliance of the private sector and the governments of the nation -- local, state, and federal -- to create jobs, jobs, jobs. Let's start with what some bright folks are doing in the great state of Florida where innovation and new ideas are sacrosanct and held in the highest regard. We must pause and here congratulate state Representative Brad Drake who at the beginning of October, 2011 filed a bill to stop letting convicted killers "get off that easy." His job- creating idea: to use firing squads, or (his far second choice) the electric chair for all those on death row. Way to go, Brad! Drake's bill would end the use of murderer-coddling lethal injection in Florida executions. Instead, those with a death sentence would get what every American craves, a choice; being entitled to choose between electrocution (remember, this is his personal second choice because it isn't the expedient that creates the most jobs in this sector) and a firing squad. He prefers the squad, because as a patriotic, jobs-creating American, that would create more jobs for needy Floridians. Drake, one of those highly valued forward looking Republicans, said the idea came to him after having a conversation with a constituent at a Waffle House over the legal battles associated with the September 28, 2011 execution of Manuel Valle. All that sugar must have gone straight to his brain. Valle's lawyers tried to stop the execution by arguing that a new lethal drug cocktail would cause him pain and therefore constitute cruel and unusual punishment. But courts rejected this argument and let the execution go forward. Why the coddling, Drake's constituent asked? They're murderers after all. And upon careful reflection this Tallahassee Solon agreed. Drake is clear that the government is spending too much time listening to advocacy groups and instead should put in place a death sentence that forces convicted murderers to contemplate their fate. Now, Brad's got the bit between his teeth. He wants to make it hard on those murderers; never mind that they are being snuffed by state order. Yeah, he wants them to think about their pending punishment "every morning," as if they weren't doing that already. Besides, this is a great chance for entrepreneurs to get into the act. Although Drake hasn't said so, I bet he's already thought up the idea of training squads of executioners and renting them out to other states which will, he is sure, come aboard after the program gets started; it's an idea, he reckons, whose time has come. And there's another financial advantage, too; we could rent these squads to foreign governments, more squeamish than we are, and so fill the empty coffers of Florida. This'll cinch the deal that ensures Rep. Drake's civic achievement. No idea too small! Our next great jobs-creating idea is also from Flori-duh, the land of ideas, light years ahead of other, less with-it Americans. Eat your heart out North Carolina for not dreaming up this one... this time legalized dwarf tossing. Clueless citizen that you are, you probably didn't know that Florida's dwarfs are in unemployment lines getting welfare, when they could -- man, woman and child alike -- be doing good service (and sparing hard-pressed tax-payers) by being tossed around like a beach ball during happy hours statewide. Wow! Where do they come up with these really great ideas! Here are the facts... According to Florida state Representative Ritch Workman, another one of those sharp- witted Republicans who run Florida these days, dwarfs are being oppressed by antediluvian state laws prohibiting them from being flung around bar rooms to enhance the drinking and entertainment experience of playful patrons, now miserable without their exuberant sport. This is a disgrace says Rep. Workman (so aptly named)... and he aims to set things to right and create a bright-shining example to other states which are still in the Dark Ages as far as dwarf tossing is concerned. Thus, "Retain Rep. Workman for the Working Man", has introduced a bill that frees dwarfs for their destiny while likely shaving a bit off the state's horrendous unemployment rate, a punishing 1.6 percent above the US average... and a disgrace to Florida which clearly needs all the help it can get. It's the double whammy of tough times for dwarfs getting jobs and the suppression of their God-given right to get tossed if and when they want to that fuels Workman's passion, for he is at once a man of tax-cutting, dollar-saving propensities and libertarian freedoms. As such, liberation of dwarfs everywhere demands his attention. And so he is aiming for nothing less than the overturning of the 1989 Florida law banning dwarf tossing as dangerous and dehumanizing. But now get this... in an interview with Rep. Workman, published by Bloomberg News and running nationwide October 8, 2011, Ritch Workman said he personally found dwarf tossing "offensive" and "stupid". Still.... "If this is a job they want and people would pay to see it or participate in it, why in the world would we prohibit it?" Why indeed! Democrats, of course, are irked beyond measure at this bill. They only want Floridians to have "real" jobs and wait patiently until their paladins create some; never mind that that might be years away. Carolyn Fiddler, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, dismisses the matter with a superior sniff. Of course she isn't a dwarf and has a job, too, and is far above the indignity of being passed from hand to hand by ruffians who might, not to put too fine a point on the matter, pinch the lady as she passes. This is, she is sure, yet another instance where Republicans don't get it. But most assuredly Rep. Workman does. He is after all a Man of Destiny, who sees clearly that less can be more. Dolly was right! I'm out of space for today, or I'd share with you more of these tales, for I have a ton of them. Suffice it to say people are not just waiting for Washington to wake up and focus on jobs. They're helping themselves and using their brains to create jobs, and we all ought to be glad for that. Unemployment hurts, and wouldn't you rather see folks in jobs they may not love than in no job at all? Maybe such a job wasn't the best on earth, but it did bring home the bacon... and besides I like hearing Dolly Parton sing. She can complain at my house any time she likes and make us believe "Your ship'll come in/ And the tide's gonna turn/ An' it's all gonna roll your way." We still believe this, don't we? Well, don't we? ******* What do you think? Let Dr. Lant know by posting your comments below. |
