The other day, I typed "job creation" into Google just for the fun of it.
It is interesting what comes back. Most of it is "free market" rhetoric in keeping with the dominant philosophy in the United States right now.
Generally, these sites said something along the lines of: "Businesses create jobs. Governments don't. Government needs to get out of the way so that the free market can operate."
It sounds good, doesn't it? I mean everyone knows that governments are just there to get in the way and regulate things to death. To remove our freedoms.
For example, if it wasn't for government, you could still drive while using your cell phone. The fact that driving distracted (in all its forms) is a risky proposition resulting in numerous accidents and fatalities every year is just a part of freedom.
For that matter, if it wasn't for government we could drive as fast as we like. I mean speed limits are just a way of destroying our freedoms. And what about seat belts along with other safety measures? More government red tape.
Absurd examples. It isn't "government" that imposes such sanctions. It is us. Reasonable people realize that there must be levels of accommodation if we are to live together. Yes, it would be great to drive as fast as you want - until you hit and kill someone. That is a pretty steep price for a driver's freedom.
So, we accept some forms of regulation and control.
However, when it comes to business, we seem to think that all regulation is bad. The free market should decide. The invisible hand should rule.
An argument can be made for the notion that businesses should operate in a shark tank where it is kill or be killed. Miss a business opportunity? Too bad, so sad.
Indeed, this sort of environment operates for many small businesses. They start with a good idea, try to get established in a local market, and sometimes fail resulting in job losses. That is how the free market works. They also sometimes succeed and, again, the free market has done its job.
The free market is now operating in much the same way on a larger scale. Internationally, jobs are shifting to low wage economy - if the product and/or resources allow it.
This is why we have apples grown in California, furniture made in Sweden, clothes from China, Indonesia, and other countries. Since wages are a big component of the cost of manufacturing and since the resources are available elsewhere, we import instead of manufacture.
I mean, who wants to have to pay fifty bucks for a shirt if you can buy it for five bucks at Walmart?
Job creation is driven not by supply or the excessively rich as the pundits at FOX News keep saying. (You can't tax the job creators, they keep saying.)
It is driven by demand. The demand for low cost goods results in jobs in countries where the wages are low. Simply put, our high wage economy can't compete with other jurisdictions.
So what sort of jobs then can we expect to have going forward?
Jobs that are tied to place. Consider a restaurant. Someone has to make the food and bring it from the kitchen to the table. It is not a job that can be outsourced.
You can outsource the ordering. Indeed, there are McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. where the person on the other end of the microphone is in a call centre in India. I suspect that the same is true of other companies that employ a single phone number such as some of our pizza joints.
But the actual act of making the food is tied to place.
Similarly, the act of digging up minerals or cutting down trees or drilling for gas is tied to place. These are activities that require access to immovable resources. They must be done where the resource is.
So, it is little wonder that Canada Starts Here, our government's new job strategy that was unveiled last week, does not have any real vision for changing the British Columbia economic landscape.
It contains the usual rhetoric - money to help resource businesses negotiate their way through the red tape of approval which, ironically, is just part of doing business.
The government has also committed to a strategy to ensure that our natural gas is shipped overseas to be used in economies where cheap goods are manufactured - thereby ensuring that our manufacturers can't compete and jobs are not repatriated to our economy.
But on the whole, it is a strategy that is business-as-usual and not a blue print for going forward with vision. It leaves us with so many missed opportunities which is a shame.
That, though, is the way of the free market.
