A Green Restorative Business Model

Where Have All The Jobs Gone?

Secretaries, Accounting Staff, File Clerks, All Gone! First, the secretary went out with the word processors, then the green shaded clerks exited when inexpensive accounting systems like Quicken and PeachTree came along.  Excel spreadsheets and complex data base driven ERP's that automate almost every aspect of a company's operation from manufacturing, to customer service are thinning the ranks of the historically employed educated class of America.  From the Sales Force to Middle Management the jobs are going - AND THEY ARE NOT COMING BACK!

And With the Jobs Go Taxes - Many municipalities are struggling with the realities of our NEW, post meltdown economy. The City of Detroit is the newest, most obvious casualty but many others are not far behind.  Reduced expectations, and dwindling revenues from a shrinking tax base are the bane of city governments everywhere.  Today, over 100 million Americans are on the very brink of poverty.    Inner cities are replete with "for sale," and "foreclosures" signs appearing in once prosperous working class neighborhoods. AND ... it's not over yet. This is NOT a result of outsourcing, nor is it the crashed economy either.  It is not a result of a lack of education as new college grads cannot find jobs today!  It is a major trend that is not only increasing it is accelerating as well.  Decent paying jobs in all sectors of the economy are being replaced by increasingly capable tools built not out of steel and metal but from the minds of innovative software designers.   These are not the ubiquitous industrial robots we see in the car commercials.  No indeed, these automated highly productive software programs that decimate the staff of many companies

New Thinking for New Jobs

The need for new thinking and new priorities are manifest if economic and social justice are ever to emerge in America.  As I'm certain you will agree, at present, there is a serious lack of such thinking.   If we are ever going to build a true just democratic system we MUST have a strong middle class.  Without ownership, without revenue from capital assets, without independence (true independence is financial independence) soon, there will be no middle class.   50 years ago Dr. Mortimer Adler, Philosopher and Economist said, "A man who is dependent for his sustenance on the good will of another man cannot be a good citizen."  True independence of thought and action require dependency be limited, that a man may make a decision not out of fear but from conscience.