BillHobbs.com is a frequently updated blog of original reporting and commentary by Bill Hobbs, a longtime Nashville journalist and media relations adviser. I am currently serving as communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, a job I began on Oct. 29, 2007.
Jeff Cornwall has a must-read post on the momentous changes taking place within the U.S. economy, and the perils ahead.
We are entering a new period of potentially major entrepreneurial economic growth. If we don't get it right from a public policy stand point, this country will be in serious trouble within the next twenty years as entrepreneurial activity may not reach the levels we need to move the economy into its next period of long-term growth. The old base of our economy is well into its decline and cannot carry us forward.
The old system is failing. Defined benefits pension plans and Social Security that were both set up by the iron triangle of large public companies, large labor unions, and a big federal government will not be sustainable into the 21st century. Demographic changes are making this failure even more dramatic and more sudden as the average life span has increased to about 80 years in America. The old system was set up when the average worker lived only two years beyond retirement.
These are perilous times. The current political movement of this country is headed toward a form of socialism that is based on the duplicitous iron triangle of old 20th century big businesses, large labor unions and an ever growing federal government. The Democrats want to take us there on a dead sprint, while the Republicans are content moving in that direction at more of a gentle stroll. But they are both taking us in the same direction.
This is not a direction that will sustain a transition to a new entrepreneurial economic age. The old way has created a cozy system in which large public companies, large unions and federal government work together to shape fundamental economic policy.
If the current entrepreneurial transition is to succeed, just as the last one did over 100 years ago, we need to free up the economy from policies that set market priorities and protect favored businesses and industries. But, the current system is highly entrenched politically and culturally. It has created a complex tax system designed to favor those with power. It has created regulations that favor the status quo and stymies entrepreneurs. It knows how to use the media to scare the public about any possible changes to the old system.
The public is really not aware of these issues, and that is how those in power like it.
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