Masters and Disasters - terms of the time

The internet is a wonderful tool to see what people are thinking about. For instance, if you look up search terms on "Google Trends," it shows you how much people are looking up certain terms. It might not be surprising that since 2007 there has been an inverse relationship between the search term job and investment. As people spend more time worrying and looking for jobs, they don't look to invest their money as much.

Back in 2004, more people put in the search term retirement, but that is also a downward trend as we head into 2009. It is interesting that in 2004, people were using the search term public education a lot, but that topic does not capture peoples' attention like it did five years ago. There has been a slight increase in interest in charter schools since 2004, but the idea has not captured the publics' imagination. It hasn't helped that charter schools as a whole have not been a successful alternative to public schools.

The truth is that people do not have faith in education's ability to bring the American ship back to stability. Why should they? What jobs will be available in America's future? Although we still are a great manufacturing power, we have shuttered domestic plants to follow low-cost labor in locations through the world. We allow our corporations to set up operations in foreign lands that builds the coffers of countries like India and China. That is where the jobs are.

Corporations with international connections can build merchandise cheaply and then sell it back to the United States. This is beneficial to the corporation and its shareholders (the wealthy), but creates a jobs vacuum in the United States. Wages go down, tax revenues go down, and we can no longer afford services to people who are poor. There are more and more who qualify for government assistance, and therefore, more government programs are needed. Unless we have good jobs that can keep American households at the middle class level, we cannot sustain the republic without taxing the stuffing out of the wealthy. What sort of a future are we giving to the youth of America? What type of future should we prepare them for?

Today, the internet's primary search term is related to who wins the Master's golf tournament. The truth is that a 21 year old Irishman named Rory McIllroy is now winning the Masters by four strokes going into the last round. Will he hold on? The second most popular term is insanity. The economic pathway that we've been moving down is certainly not sane, so we might as well watch the Masters and watch the rest of the world clean our clocks. We can listen to Kelly Clarkson sing her first number one country hit. The truth is that to turn the American economy around will take a huge change in attitude. Free trade is not free to us. Free trade strips our country of jobs, capital, and equality. We cannot sustain an economy in which half the households cannot afford to pay taxes.