Right to employment...

I was thinking about the news coming out of France and the fact that in France laws make it virtually impossible to fire those workers who prove to be incompetent and lazy. As a result wouldn't this kind of policy by a government make private business extremely reluctant to even hire new young workers. Look at it this way and I take this quote from Evan Coyne Maloney...

If agreeing to a date with someone meant that you had to marry and spend the rest of your life with that person, how many dates would you go on?

Now I want to be honest about something. This is one reason why I'd be an economic conservative. I was out of school for a year attempting to find work and doing so would help in my goal of returning to school. This was during a time when the economy wasn't at its best and of course that's not to say there weren't jobs out there.

I've concluded that if the economy isn't doing well then someone does something to essentially get the economy growing again. You do this by reducing regulations and cutting taxes to name a couple of good policies. If you fail to do that and then expand say social programs which may need taxes to be feasible then how is it going to be supported if businesses aren't producing and people aren't working.

I remember a few years ago Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (I've stated that I'd support him for mayor should he choose to do that) that he proposed some constitutional amendments. One of them was "the right . . . to full employment and balanced economic growth." I can say that I think he's wrong on that and I know his heart is in the right place. He wants to help his people but mandating full employment and balanced economic growth isn't going to solve the problem it may exacerbate the issue needlessly like it seems to be doing in France.

I don't pretend to have the absolute answer to this problem. But I believe in incentives and I believe that some things just have to be earned not handed to you. Having a job handed to you might be nice but why work if you will have the position no matter if you really don't show up to work and/or barely produce.

Either way the situation in France right now got me to think about that Tribune article back in 2003. If America ever went down that road, I think we'd be in trouble. We won't be the economic marvel of the world at that rate. And unfortunately the greatness of America revolves around the ability to innovate services and products. I sincerely hope that there is no amendment in the constitution mandating a right to economic growth and employment.