Fed dough vs dependency

Pertinent federal agencies collect figures on income to determine poverty thresholds. Sifting, they take quick glimpses to understand what they mean. But what the figures represent isn’t necessarily the whole picture of how poverty came into existence per family. What we have is strictly statistics.

As these figures come into secondary and tertiary review, questions arise whether giving housing, food, and health assistance to the lowest echelon would help them move along or would the extension be taken for granted that government would provide for all their needs.

Do we help those who once helped themselves but fell in view of the bad times and need some temporary assistance to get back on their feet? If we want to empathize with those who once were on their feet, what has government done to spur wealth and jobs creation to ensure their return to productivity?

Government is supposed to be our agent of wealth and jobs creation, the goal being to provide people the means to help themselves through meaningful employment. If this doesn’t happen, then it translates into contraction of private industries and joblessness for a good number of people who are still productive and willing to work.

When the welfare state enters, it amounts to a wholesale takeover of individual lives. As opposed to government stepping in to soften the blow, the welfare state assumes from the start that individuals won’t make it without government managing their lives.

It is not an accident that despite trillions of dollars spent on anti-poverty programs since the 1960’s across the country there are little discernable changes in poverty rate. The problem has taken a turn for the worse because the broken families and broken spirits resulting from government plantation dependence have institutionalized poverty everywhere. This could very well be true on the islands.

The redistribution or transfer of funds from paying taxpayers to non-taxpayers would become the new ingrained culture so difficult to untangle in subsequent years. Wealth and jobs creation are the answers to stopping the onslaught of the welfare state from taking permanent foothold here. A` Saina!

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Too, the CNMI doesn’t manufacture anything at all. So it makes wealth and jobs creation doubly difficult. The void to revive wealth and jobs creation is oceans apart, seriously severed by internal and external factors. One wonders if we would ever recapture the healthy economy we had in the ’80s and ’90s. Or is this just a figment of my imagination?

The elected elite must review the laws on takeover of immigration and minimum wage to untangle the prohibitive provision slamming the doors on manufacturing altogether. I still say that salaries must be premised on economic conditions under the free enterprise system. Statutory dictates leave nothing but ruination that fast-forward annihilation. It also means returning to the drawing board to repeal any and all anti-business laws that have stifled expansion and new business startups.

For as long as the local government snoozes on the job rather than take a proactive role in wealth and jobs creation, the welfare state would envenom recipients to do nothing constructive to pull themselves out of handouts. Meaningful employment is the answer, an answer that remains as mysterious as the imposition of austerity that still renders the local government over $25 million in deficit spending.

The sense of personal industry was well and alive among our folks some 40-60 years ago. Whether one is a farmer, fisherman, or owner of a small mom-and-pop store, the untiring effort to produce sufficiently for the market and family use was never in short supply.

I saw an uncle, a self-made man work his garden all day then head to the lagoon early in the evening until midnight, reef fishing. He would do this at least three times a week. He sells the best produce at the market and keeps the excess for family use.

Then there’s the case of my grand auntie who walks to As Lito once a week, hauling a sack of husked coconuts or some local nuts and bringing it all the way home to Lali Four in CK. She’ll grade coconuts for oil ointment and save some for coconut candy. This she did all her life and kept her routine simple: church, farm then home and an occasional trip to Guam.

I used to marvel at their success and what seems to be the recipe that brought them above the rest. It was sheer hard work and the ability to return, time and again, to harvest their dreams even if it means taking the extra mile to reach the stated goal. It’s persistence, consistency, vision, and conviction that will get you there almost every single time. Set your dreams and ride your canoe confidently, equally wary that the water that lifts it could easily sink it too. Be ready for critical strategic planning in order to stay competently competitive. Move on!

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Buddy Magoo has been tinkering with ideas to help the once thriving apparel industry here. Only problem is he came in a bit too late. Said he, “The emplacement of hi-tech robots substituting expensive warm bodies would have done the job of retaining the industry from deploying.” But this would have required hiring a man to watch the machine and a dog to watch the man from messing the machine. (Laughter).