Economic apathy is no joke

We never tired of this shtick in grade school:

Precocious Brat Number One: “What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?”

Precocious Brat Number Two: “I don’t know…and I don’t care.”

Meanwhile, here we are, confronting a wall of economic apathy in the Commonwealth the size and lethality of Suicide Cliff, and it’s even less funny than a worn out joke.

There are sure no smiles to be found in the fact that the Commonwealth’s mainstay industry, garment manufacturing, is having to buck the headwinds of global competition. Scores of employees have just been laid off. Nobody who I know is happy with that. The garment companies aren’t. The employees aren’t. The business community isn’t. I’m not. And the people of the Commonwealth…well, hold on; just how do they feel about this latest economic bad news?

Well, I don’t know. In fact, I haven’t see much reaction at all among the citizens of the Commonwealth as the economy has been bled in front of their very eyes for a number of years now. I mean…does anyone care?

The garment industry is a billion-dollar baby (somewhat less now, actually), that has served as a life-saving counterpart to the fumbled fortunes of the tourism realm. In a typical economy, when the manufacturing industry sheds one dollar in payroll, the economy loses about five dollars. And thus we confront the “multiplier effect,” a word that describes all that busy-bee behavior by suppliers, employees, businesses that the employees frequent, businesses that the suppliers frequent, the people paid from all that tax revenue, the businesses who sell stuff to those people, and so on.

This is why economists have thick eyeglasses and squint at little numbers all the time; small changes in business activity snowball into big changes in economies. This is also why being an economist is a horrible and boring life, and it’s hard to find dates.

Meanwhile, let’s get something straight regarding tourism right now: Tourism levels are less than half, yes, less than half, of what they could have been if the sector hadn’t been driven off a cliff by lousy policy. Anybody who grins at me and says that everything is ok, tourism is going to save the CNMI, isn’t looking at the same data that I’m looking at.

Besides, hoteliers are bright enough to know that they will be forced, not asked, but forced, to make up any tax shortfall that is caused by any lull in garment activity. We depend on many critical government agencies: PSS, CUC, CHC, and DPS, for example. Who will pay the taxes to fund them if the garment sector hits turbulence? The only folks left are really the hotel owners. As for potential hotel builders, well, they know that anything they build may become hostage to any brewing fiscal crisis here. Would you lay your chips on that kind of table?

But don’t take my word for the situation. Just look around you. Are good jobs easy to come by? No. For that matter, are mediocre jobs easy to come by? No again. How about really rotten, horrible jobs that make you want to kick a boonie dog after you get off of work? Heck, even those jobs are scarce, which is lucky for the boonie dogs, at least.

Then what more evidence does anyone need? Things aren’t good. They’re bad. The only folks who dispute that are (as usual) drawing government checks. But ignore all the hired liars and habitual hustlers, the truth is in front of your eyes. There is, therefore, no need to be ignorant about the economic situation.

And as for apathy, well, it doesn’t pay the bills either. Believe me, I’ve tried. So if the CNMI doesn’t change course, it will join Nauru in the economic joke-of-the-decade column. That’s a pretty funny one, but it’s your children who will have to live with the punch lines.