Poverty puts stress on a person's life. Someone worried about eating isn't going to worry about all the other parts of life. We are going to see one of two things happen soon. A new industry needs to be born and hire many people, or people will continue to lose and get paid less as demand goes down and production per person goes up, and we will see those without work start voting for a system like negative income tax or basic income.
What we need is free markets; a disintegration of the regulatory barriers that prevent the lower middle class from building small businesses and employing the underclass. It'll never happen, though. Frankly I see things going in a very socialist direction, and very much or the worst. The people will get $2000 a month or so, but they'll pay for it with what few remaining freedoms they have.
End rant.What we need is free markets; a disintegration of the regulatory barriers that prevent the lower middle class from building small businesses and employing the underclass.
There are a lot of people, myself included, that would say that this is complete hogwash and that the regulations exist for a reason. Lately though, I've had a change of mind. Why? Because I have worked with a startup and seen first hand how much it seems that bureaucracy is in place to stifle innovation. It's insane. Not to say that some regulations aren't needed, they are but in many sectors it's just too cumbersome. Also, whatever happened to good old fashioned "buyer beware?" Do we really need big brother holding our hand all the time?
I honestly think the best thing to go with is a company-based regulation system. Start with a strict set of standards for how a product must be labeled. The government checks and ensures only that the label is correct, and that the label is deserved. Then set standards. "A product meets this level if X" Then a company must go through another company who gets government money on two bases. A) The number of products tested. B) The quality of the testings. So, I as a manufacturer have a choice. A) deliver my product with no seal of quality. B) deliver my product to one of many companies who will test a batch, for a price, and will then hand off a sheet of data to the government. Now, the company ships off it's product, and one of three things happen. a) if the products tested show signs of failure, the company which produced the product will be fined. That fine will pay the original testing company to then re-test products that are on sale for consumers. If the two do not match, the company gets a VERY high fine. b) the product is fine. c) the company produced a fake label. Any citizen who turns in one of these products for sale to the government gets a small tax deduction and the company must reimburse them. The deduction is only once per year.