Our new President has been inaugurated and along with the larger-than-life event it not surprisingly turned out to be we have some positive things to look forward to. Regardless of what his policies are or will be, I think the biggest factor is going to be having the support and optimism of the people behind him. The press, the entertainment industry. . he has it all on his side. Strangely enough I have a feeling if he were to go out and nuke North Korea or Iran tomorrow, much of the country would be chanting "Obama!" Movies would be made of him depicting him as a hero of our times. . . but I digress.
What I truly appreciate about the sentiment in his message for his new role as leader of this country is the "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" as J.F.K. so brilliantly layed out many years ago. This is what we the people really need to ask ourselves and think about if we are going to have a chance at bringing ourselves up from this troubled situation.
I believe that we the people will have the most influence and ability to turn things around. Nothing the president can do can have more of an affect at turning things around than the power of the people and what we do from here on. More specifically, we the consumer will have the most influence on what happens in the years to come. It's a global market and we are falling way behind. As Consumers, we must begin to be more responsible and deliberate about our purchases and support. Our country does not produce much of anything any more because we cannot compete with the prices of countries producing goods with slave labor, such as China.
There are a couple of ways this can go. We can either break up all the Unions in this country and start paying all our workers slave labor wages and begin to compete. This would most likely result in China chaining their workers to their stations and paying them nothing but food and water to stay alive and continue producing. . . or we can start considering other things besides price when it comes to our purchases. Labor policies and quality amongst other criteria should be equally important as price. If consumers are willing to pay more for an item because they know the manufacturer treats it's workers fairly for one thing, it would begin to reflect in the labor policies of these slave labor countries.
Perhaps it is not so simple, but I do believe that we the people and we the consumer can bring about change like no other power can. Markets are most always shaped by the demands of the consumer, and we live in one big global market. Lets start purchasing responsibly.
Oh, and stop buying those bootleg dvds and toys off the street. . . .
I never did.
