There Ought to Be a Law!

Recently our new President has talked about skipping the practice of giving companies tax breaks for sending US jobs overseas. This is a very good idea. It isn't rocket science after all and one wonders how we got into this situation in the first place. If your constituents are people who need jobs in the United States then why would you pass a law that rewards companies for sending them some place else?

The answer is that for the last twenty or thirty years we have been replaced by a much smaller and richer constituent - the corporate lobbyist. Why else would Senators and Congressman refuse to listen to the public cry for health care? Because they don't answer to us anymore. They aren't afraid of losing their jobs because of the endless sums of money the corporate lobbyists give to their campaigns thus insuring their re-election.

We need President Obama to take on these corporations in the same way that Teddy Roosevelt did. Removing incentives for them to move jobs out of the country is just the tip of the iceberg. Let's consider some other changes that he should make. Many things need to be done in health care, the environment, and energy to name just a few. Why don't we start with the environment?

A couple of decades ago corporate marketers needed to find a new way to make people buy more of their stuff. In the past creating things that were made well and lasted the longest was the manner in which manufacturers attempted to retain a person's patronage. But somewhere along the line a very smart and very evil person recognized that if something worked well and lasted a long time then there was less need to buy another.

This person pointed out that the corporation could have the same thing produced cheaply, sold cheaply, and then when it broke sell another, and another, and another. They would make more money in the long run and the silly patrons would think they were getting a bargain. It has worked beautifully. Now you only have to pay $59.00 for a vacuum that runs a year, breaks, gets tossed into a landfill, and then you get to purchase another one. You think you're getting a good deal while the corporation laughs all the way to a Swiss bank (wouldn't want to pay any American taxes on all that American profit!)

Another evil person decided that the best way to get people to spend more money per person at McDonalds was to make the portions much larger (at almost no extra cost to them.) This allowed them to charge more but left the customer thinking they were getting a better deal. It was so successful it became an industry trend and has single-handedly altered Americans idea of what is a proper portion for a meal. They must be very proud and very rich!

And now for one of my greatest corporate annoyances - Disposability! Perhaps the most evil person of all came up with the brilliant suggestion that if you made things disposable then they would need to be replaced all the time. It might be hard to make consumers understand the benefits but that's what they pay advertising agencies for. Those clever people use every trick in the book to sell their products and guilt is their number one tactic.

Here are some classic arguments put forth by the disposable people: You will be a terrible Mother if you use that stinking washcloth instead of this 'sanitary' disposable one. Your children crawl around on these floors that you've just washed with that horrible reusable mop - be very ashamed and go out and buy a disposable mop with additional cloths right away. Your children never get a hot breakfast of Bisquick pancakes so you must buy this one use only plastic Bisquick container to make your kids pancakes in the morning!

All of those things end up in a landfill. Now doesn't that make you feel guilty? Everybody needs to watch the movie Wall-E at least ten times until they get the message. Once the people get the message then they can start boycotting these products and perhaps forcing them to adjust. But in the meantime their ought to be a law.

So, Mr. President, along with removing tax breaks for companies that move jobs how about penalizing the serial polluters out there? There would be a number of ways to accomplish this. Let's charge companies additional tax dollars for producing items that are not environmentally friendly. We can also reward companies that produce items that are environmentally responsible. We can change the direction we've been going in but it will require all of us to participate, the people and the government.