Let’s mine sunshine

More than one person on Saipan has griped to me that tourism jobs are grueling; you have to force a smile when you’d rather frown; it taxes the patience to answer the same question 30 times a day, every day; and if you’re expected to meet a tour bus at 8am, sliding in at 10am just won’t do, no matter how sick you claim your auntie is.

Ah, tough world. I’ve done a lot of hands-on work in Saipan’s tourism sector, mostly the air tour industry, and I don’t deny that it’s challenging work…but truly hard? Give me a break.

One thing I haven’t done is work in the garment industry, which has been a target of much slander from the liberal (socialist) element, but every single garment worker that I’ve ever talked to wanted to stay on Saipan and keep working; they like their jobs, and most actually maintain a better attitude than I do ensconced in my cushy little office.

So to the liberals (socialists) and the anti-business complainers in general, I offer this: Been in a mine lately?

If the liberals (socialists) are so unhappy with Saipan’s industry and want to kill its jobs for the “good” of the workers, then why haven’t these self-appointed do-gooders picked a battle with the U.S. mining industry? This industry has seen one horrible, deadly disaster after another. This week’s West Virginia tragedy claimed a dozen souls in a heartbreaking event that claimed global headlines.

In 2001, an Alabama mine explosion killed 13 workers. In 1992, a Virginia mine accident claimed eight. In 1989… Kentucky…10 killed. Nineteen eighty six…West Virginia…five killed. And 1984…Utah…27 killed.

I’m not picking on the U.S. mining industry. It is simply a hazardous business by its very nature, and I’m sure that most or all of the mines do an admirable job of making things as safe as possible.

But what I don’t understand is why Saipan’s business establishment is a punching bag for the very subversives who wouldn’t dare stick out their pencil necks in a place like West Virginia or Utah and try to steal jobs from their workers, despite the fact that their workers face perilous conditions worse than anything we could even imagine on Saipan.

OK, maybe I do understand it. Some scruffy-faced little lib-type wouldn’t dare go face to face with a miner and try to take his job from him for “his own good.” I’ve known a couple of hard rock miners (for gold) in the western mountains, and they’d gladly knock the teeth out of anyone interfering with their livelihoods.

The pickings are easier in Saipan, so that’s where the crusading anti-business cowards focused. After all, ladies in garment factories aren’t going to punch any liberals (socialists) in the jaw, and hourly workers in hotels are likewise helpless prey for the machinations of socialist elitists who want the poor to have no chance of economic self-betterment. The very foundation of liberalism (socialism) is masses who are dependent on the government, and this entails taking jobs away from workers, taxing them into poverty, and killing the business establishment (if not killing the actual business owners, a hallmark of a true socialist revolution).

You see, to a liberal (socialist), it’s a zero sum game: Every job in the private sector is one less person on welfare, which means one less person beholden to the socialist machine.

It’s that simple.

And, yes, it’s that evil, too.

Tourism, hard? Saipan’s garment factories, bad? And the retail and administrative jobs that go along with these sectors, lousy?

Well, I can think of a lot less appealing industries. The Commonwealth should count its blessings and mend its economy, or it will be mining poverty and broken dreams in the future.

(Ed Stephens Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. E-mail him at Ed@SaipanEconomist.com.)