I hope this doesn’t sound too pessimistic, but our nation has some serious problems right now - unemployment, greed, the Washington political establishment, bloated state budgets, etc.

As someone once said “we are our own worst enemy.” The more information I encounter, the worse the world economic picture looks and the greater the number of worldly disasters seem to occur. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could actually stop the world for 24 hours and assess what we are doing to the planet and God’s creatures on it?

The phrase “Greed is Good” may have helped create a motion picture icon, but the truth is the phrase can do as much damage (maybe more) as it does good. The “profit motive” that has led to the industrial powerhouse our nation was noted for has been overwhelmed by its own success. First year business majors in college are learning principles that go far beyond the Rockefeller-Carnegie days and new developments in computers are providing opportunities for whiz kids to become multi-millionaires before they are 30 years old.

These opportunities have both good and negative potential for our world.

As important as Wal-Mart is to our area of the state, the low-price policy has led to an exodus of manufacturing from this country to foreign shores where labor costs are much lower and are comparable to the situation that existed when our nation was at the same stage in its development as those countries are today. We have many more gadgets today made in foreign countries than we don’t actually “have to have” but they are “convenient” and relatively inexpensive.

Made with American labor they may not be practical, but the cost of that item would actually allow us to buy an American-made product of another item if we combined the two costs. To paraphrase the baseball motion picture line “if you build it they will come” to “reduce the price and they will buy it” fits our economy today. I recently bought a new wrist watch for less than the cost of a replacement band on my old watch.

It is not a crime to reduce costs, but the long range implications of our world’s direction is frightening. It hasn’t been that many years ago that one of our plating suppliers in Milwaukee, Wisc., (zinc, cadmium, chrome, etc.) doubled the price of his physical plants’ cost to put in pollution control equipment to meet EPA and Wisconsin state water emission standards. Needless to say, the cost of his services had to increase to pay for this equipment. In Asian countries, the lack of controls keeps costs down and makes available products and processes not economical in our country. So we, as consumers, contribute to our own destruction. When did you last buy an American-made shirt?

I’m sure they are available somewhere but I haven‘t seen any lately!

We are not “wrong,” just a little short-sighted when we see a bargain. Foreign car makers have been the leaders in providing 100,000-mile power train warranties on their cars and Detroit’s unwillingness to be a leader in the area of warranties has contributed to their need for government bailout funds to survive. The philosophy of Detroit 35 years ago was “increase the cost and the consumer will have to pay for it.” I know for a fact because I was dealing with them.

Today. Wall Street is pushing gold and the price has escalated to over $1,300 per ounce on the threat of worldwide recession. International banks, nations like China and India, as well as wealthy individuals are competing for the available supply of numerous commodities. The PIIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain) are all faced with the threat of financial collapse and are being bailed out by other EU countries. They are going through some serious soul-searching and have to deal with social unrest as a result. Someday Americans are going to be faced with even more of the effects of our good years.

We probably have too many multi-millionaires (even multi-billionaires) with too many yachts, and too many unemployed family bread winners for our nation to be healthy. And, far too many of the rich are numbered among our national leaders in Washington. When people suggest to me that “experience” is important in government, I can only reply that integrity is essential in all walks of life and too much experience in Washington causes me to wonder about the integrity issue.

Our society seems to worship insane entertainment personalities and the profane icons of the media world. We build up the role models for our children such as Tiger Woods (and now Brett Favre) and then try to destroy them when we find out they are only human. When our society gets back to “normal” and remembers that Scripture says “you will have no other god before HIM,” maybe we will see some things change to a less self-centered way of life.

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Editor’s note: Leo Lynch, a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/13/2010