Christopher M. England’s Outsourcing the American Dream

Transforming Rust into Gold

 

There isn’t a set definition to the American Dream – you will not find it in any dictionary. Therefore, it’s up to every individual to define it for themselves. The American Dream is not a destination; it’s a life-long journey of discovery and growth. If you needed to define it, the closest you might come is “the promise of opportunity and freedom.” The point is we have the opportunity and freedom to shape our own dreams. My dream is that we get back to what our Founding Fathers intended for our country – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson borrowed this treatise from English philosopher John Locke. Only John Locke originally called for life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. Every American should have the opportunity to own property and to invest in our nation’s future. The best way to provide this opportunity is by creating new industries, new jobs, and new products that can compete effectively in global markets. Together, we can turn rust into gold.

 

R Adopt conservative fiscal management policies. Slash our debt and discard Keynesian Economic Theories that support deficit spending and drain our nation of value. By borrowing to cover its own deficits, the government competes with private enterprise for precious capital. This reduces the amount of capital available for new plant and equipment and research and development. A smaller deficit will reduce interest rates and lower the cost of borrowing. This will lead to faster growth, which, in turn, will produce a net increase in government revenues.

 

R Combat offshoring and outsourcing. Americans don't care whether their jobs are "offshored" to India or "outsourced" to Indiana. Regardless of the term or place, it is a disease that destroys employee morale and hampers the organization's ability to grow. It may cut costs in the short term, but at the expense of the people who have the potential to create value for the organization in the long term. What's needed is bold, decisive, and visionary leadership in business and government capable of releasing this potential.

 

R Create new jobs. The key to long-term prosperity is how quickly America can transform the results of corporate restructuring and technological advances into a job-creation machine. America has the potential to create new industries, new jobs, and new products that can compete effectively in global markets. Isolationism and protectionism aren't the answers. Among America's greatest assets is our free-market system, which provides the opportunity for the constant creation of new enterprises and new jobs. We must begin by investing in the development of America's West Coast. America's West Coast constitutes a major part of the rapidly-developing Pacific Rim. For the United States to play a pivotal role in its development, we must invest in education, infrastructure, science and technology, and training for displaced workers.  

 

R Create value. Every market is value-driven, and where there’s value, there’s profit. The real question is who’s creating the value? China’s becoming the manufacturer of choice, and India’s intellectual capacity is unparalleled.  As they create value, they’ll reap the profits. Many American companies have to contend with raiders, takeover artists, and other “paper entrepreneurs” who simply shuffle existing wealth around rather than create new wealth. China and India, on the other hand, are creating new wealth.

 

R Cut foreign aid and invest in America first. Why should we place foreigners above Americans? We must teach foreign nations they must depend on themselves and not on “American welfare.” America must take a return-on-investment approach to all foreign aid. Each time we invest abroad, we should ask ourselves are we getting our money's worth?

 

R Encourage American labor unions to organize labor in foreign nations, especially in Mexico. The critics of the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) argue that cheap Mexican labor will create “a giant sucking sound” as American corporations head south. American labor unions would benefit by discarding this line of thinking and entering Mexico to organize their labor. The benefits of such an effort would be two-fold. First, America would benefit since these efforts should slow the downward movement of American wages toward a global average and quicken the upward movement of foreign wages toward the American average. Second, unions would benefit since these efforts would reverse decades of declining union membership.

 

R End world dependence on foreign oil. In my July 2008 article, “Rescue the American Dream from the Tyranny of Foreign Oil,” I not only outlined several initiatives that are essential to the survival of America’s Big Three automakers, I also outlined numerous initiatives we must undertake to simultaneously diversify sources of oil supplies, dramatically slash oil consumption, and increase production of alternative-energy sources to clean up the environment, increase our energy efficiency, protect national security interests, reduce the military and political leverage of OPEC oil, revitalize the U.S. economy, and shrink trade deficits.

 

R Fortify the nation's infrastructure. Invest in communications, transportation, and utilities, especially in high-tech regions. Repeat the successes of Silicon Valley and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill throughout the United States.  Additionally, we must begin to build roads to last using high-tech materials and production technologies. If we build roads to last, we can spend less on routine maintenance and repairs and more on improvements and new projects to keep pace with economic growth and changing transportation patterns.

 

R Foster partnerships between American businesses and university laboratories, between science and industry.  As the Japanese have proven, the industries of the future do not always emerge in response to market forces. Give American corporations first crack at the basic research (and the resulting patents) conducted in university laboratories. Boost funding for science and technical education of native-born Americans. Americans invented the computer, the facsimile machine, the micro-wave oven, the television, the video-cassette recorder, the oil drilling and refining equipment in use throughout the entire Middle East, and almost every form of modern communication equipment available, just to name a few. How many of these inventions are manufactured by American corporations today?

 

R Overhaul the guidelines for immigration to America. Can you believe the Federal Government wants to build a permanent fence between America and Mexico and waste valuable resources to patrol its perimeter? It’s true America no longer can afford to accept and support the world's huddled masses, but we need to shape immigration policy with more creative forethought. Tear down the fence and dig a canal instead! For a cost far smaller than that of providing welfare and other government benefits to illegal immigrants, the American-Mexican border can be closed permanently. The benefits of such an effort would be five-fold. First, it would slow the flow of illegal immigrants across America's border. Second, unemployed American and Mexican labor could be employed to construct the canal. Third, the canal, connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific Ocean, would present the opportunity for inland states to take advantage of Pacific Rim developments. Fourth, it would reduce the world's reliance on the Panama Canal. Fifth, profits from the canal's operation would give a much-needed boost to the American and Mexican economies.

 

R Privatize some government functions and downsize government. I also think we should be sharing resources across state boundaries – kind of a shared services concept – to reduce duplication of effort and reduce the wasteful government spending of tax dollars. For instance, I’d like to see regional investments in infrastructure, such as high-speed rail connecting Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Detroit, maybe even throw Pittsburgh into the mix. Privatize federal assets and services, including federal loan programs, public housing, Amtrak, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, to name just but a few. 

 

R Put an end to life-time appointments to the Supreme Court. Amend the U.S. Constitution to place term limits on Supreme Court justices. We must send a clear message that justices serve only to interpret the law, not to make the law.

 

R Put an end to America's unilateral free-trade policies. In addition to ending world dependence on foreign oil, my December 2008 article, “Rescuing GM,” encourages the Federal Government to put an end to America’s unilateral free-trade policies. We should practice free-trade only with nations who practice it with us. Why do we allow Japan full access to the American economy, when Japan puts up barriers to American ownership of Japanese corporations or restricts the number of automobiles GM or Ford can sell in Japan? If Japan puts up barriers, we need to do the same. If China implements a 25% import tariff making our automobiles more expensive in Chinese markets, we need to do the same making Chinese automobiles more expensive in American markets. This isn’t protectionism; it’s good economic sense. 

 

R Reduce barriers to new enterprise and stimulate entrepreneurial initiative by altering the tax code. Our tax code must reward entrepreneurship, risk taking, saving for the future, and work. The State of the American Dream can be determined by measuring the quality of corporate and government leadership and the availability of capital for long-term investment. Poor leadership, combined with a lack of capital, translates into sub-par economic performance. We must reinvest the fruits of prosperity to generate more capital for expansion and growth. One thing I’d like to see is a permanent capital-gains tax credit. We should exempt capital gains from taxation only if the entire gain is reinvested in America. If the entire gain is not reinvested in America, we should tax the gain at ordinary income-tax rates. This will encourage corporations to accumulate and invest capital to create a productive and more competitive economy. This can be accomplished by cutting income taxes, lowering interest rates, increasing consumption taxes, and forming government/business partnerships to expand exports relative to imports. If our current tax system is designed to “soak the rich,” why is the middle class drowning? It’s time to replace America's anti-investment, anti-savings, anti-success, anti-work tax code. By taxing or subsidizing things it shouldn't, the government creates the environment for us to borrow more than we save, consume more than we produce, spend more money than we earn, and redistribute wealth rather than create it.

 

R Reduce the regulatory bureaucracy and put an end to frivolous lawsuits. It doesn't make sense to saddle our corporations with oppressive regulations and frivolous lawsuits, especially when the same burdens do not affect our foreign competitors. The costs of excessive regulations are not borne by the corporation anyway, but rather they are borne by the consumer, in the form of higher prices for goods and services. Require foreign corporations doing business in America to pay the same tax rates and to comply with the same regulations as American corporations. Above all, make the government adhere to the same accounting principles and standards it imposes on American corporations.

 

R Shift welfare funding into jobs programs, requiring work for benefits; deny non-citizens welfare and other government benefits. The Democrats do not want to dismantle any of the programs put in place by Franklin D. Roosevelt, our thirty-second president, to pull the United States out of the depths of the Great Depression. Many Democrats see the longevity and continued existence of his Depression-era programs as their memorial to him. I wonder how FDR would feel if he knew the Democrats' memorial to him is bankrupting our nation, both economically and morally? His welfare programs, strengthened by our thirty-sixth president, Lyndon B. Johnson, and his so-called “Great Society” programs, have fostered a culture of dependency, perpetuating the poverty they were designed to end. The traditional American values of family, opportunity, responsibility, and work have been replaced with government, victimization, dependency, and entitlement. Even FDR admitted his welfare programs were meant to be temporary safety nets, not lifetime support systems. Perhaps it's time to pull the plug?

 

R Support a new “Made in USA” labeling system. I believe “Made in USA” should be reserved for products having 98% domestic content for parts and labor. A few years back, General Motors advertised the Camaro as “invented by the country that invented rock and roll.” Only problem is, the Camaro’s produced in Canada. Remember the Cadillac Catera? It really was an Opel MV6 produced in Germany. The Honda Accord’s produced in Marysville, OH. It’s more American Made than either the Camaro or the Catera. American corporations who manufacture their products in foreign nations should be prohibited from marketing their products back home as “American made.” 

 

R Upgrade public education and establish a national apprentice program to replace vocational training. America's failure to invest in human capital has damaged our ability to compete. Too many American workers lack the skills necessary to perform today's knowledge-intensive jobs. To begin, establish a national course of study: English language and literature (reading and writing); mathematics; science and technology; social studies, including history and geography; art, music, or another discipline designed to stimulate creativity and lateral thinking; personal and household finance; and commercially-viable foreign languages. Good conduct also should be taught, shaped by in-school discipline, if necessary. Students arrested for violent crimes or for the possession of drugs or weapons immediately should be removed from the traditional school setting and enrolled in special military-style academies for the duration of their primary education. It's time to start rewarding students who exercise good conduct and punishing those who don't; students who exercise good conduct should be given the opportunity to learn in an environment free of fear. Dropping out from high school also must be discouraged. This can be accomplished by denying high-school drop-outs welfare and other government benefits, including the right to drive a car. Those who complete high school and decide not to go on to college, should be required to enroll in a national apprentice program for two to four years of schooling together with on-the-job training sponsored by local corporations. Under such a program, graduates would receive a technical certificate along with a school guarantee for technical competency. Finally, shift power from the administrators and unions to the parents and local corporations. To compete in a global economy, we must repeat the successes of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia throughout the United States. Additionally, we must repeat the successes of Jaime Escalante, an immigrant math teacher in a tough, inner-city high school in Los Angeles and subject of the hit movie Stand and Deliver, throughout the United States.

 

Christopher M. England, a finance and marketing professional, is an accomplished management and process improvement consultant. His audiences range from senior executives to middle managers, from seasoned professionals to entry-level support staff. He has an MBA in Organizational Leadership and Management and resides in Pickerington, OH.

 

Outsourcing the American Dream (ISBN 0-595-20148-2) is available for order wherever fine books are sold, including Barnes & Noble, Borders, Media Play, and other retail bookstores; and Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Booksamillion.com, and other on-line booksellers; or direct from the publisher at 1-877-823-9235.

 

www.christophermengland.com is the official website for the author of Outsourcing the American Dream.   It includes biography and interviews, book excerpts and reviews, and contact and ordering information; also includes unique election, mortgage, offshoring, and voting resources you will not find anywhere else. 

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