The Paralysis of Politics
It is with considerable trepidation that I approach this post.
I’m a marketing expert. I help people sell stuff. I help them advertise more effectively and efficiently. I help them get more bang for their marketing buck. I’m all about testing and tracking, chasing cost per lead, cost per sale, profit per sale.
I don’t have a desire to become a political commentator, but as I look over several of my posts since early in ’08, it seems I have addressed politically related issues on more than one occasion.
You see, we can’t just market in a vacuum any more. We can’t simply ply our trades, oblivious to all that’s going on around us.
Why?
Because they’re killing us, that’s why.
The politicos are literally killing the economy of this country and everybody is going down with it. It’s a pernicious, insidious death.
Please allow me explain the following five points…
1. Every organization is a reflection of its leadership. This is true of anything from a family to an entire society or culture. Our leadership has led by example. They have told us for decades that there are two kinds of debt. Good debt and bad. They have used this excuse for endless deficit spending, government growth, and incredible, no – inconceivable – national dept. (Can you conceive of a trillion dollars?) So what have the states, cities, families, companies and individual investors done? Gone deeply into debt. We’re a nation of debtors, taken there by our leaders of both parties. Can we continue to fool ourselves into believing that debt is good? Debt’ll kill you, man.
2. Whether by tax and spend or borrow and spend policies, the politicians have promised us more and more freebies, making us less and less self sufficient and more and more dependent on government. In other words, dumb and lazy, and feeling “entitled.” How long can that go on?
3. Rather than let the marketplace dictate things like wages, we have minimum wages, dictated by people who don’t have to make a payroll every two weeks. They don’t get it, do they? As the minimum wage goes up arbitrarily as mandated by the government, and without a corresponding increase in profits, something has to give. So fewer people are hired. No choice. What kind of impact do you suppose that has on a company’s ability to market their goods?
4. In the name of saving us, the government spends your money and mine to bail out its selected favorites, rewarding them for their stupidity. They pass laws that offer unsustainable programs. The politicians, not private enterprise, creates the environment, the regulations and ultimately insists that people in banks and other institutions do stupid things that don’t make any sense at all, and we all end up paying for it.
5. But the biggest burden of all is manufactured uncertainty. Are you going to create new positions, invent new products, build new facilities, and undertake the activities of commerce, when you don’t know what to expect? Probably not. Are you going to buy things that the law may soon outlaw? Not likely.
Here’s why the American economy isn’t going anywhere good, anytime soon. Nobody has a clue what to expect. With cap and trade on the table, how do you buy a car, or open a plant, or invest in traditional energy, or do anything that takes energy? You can’t. You can’t run the risk of making a decision that makes sense in today’s world but not in tomorrow’s.
How about healthcare? Do you switch plans, keep what you’ve got, look to the government, don’t expect anything out of them? Who knows? How can you hire somebody when you don’t know whether that person will be profitable to have on-board in your company or not?
And as an individual, you can’t buy health insurance today. Will it be around tomorrow? Will it even be legal?
You can’t buy a car or a home or anything else. If I buy a bigger home, the energy costs, which I can afford today, could bankrupt me tomorrow.
And finally, how can I buy anything? I don’t know what my money will be worth tomorrow. I’d better hang on to whatever I’ve got.
Tell me you don’t feel this way. I know you do, because nobody is buying anything. We’re in the throes of “political paralysis.”
At first blush, this may appear to be a hopeless situation. It is not. And like everything else, you have got to sell your way out of a business problem. The marketing principles, strategies and tactics we have talked about in this column over the better part of five years now, must be applied to politics. And we’re all going to have to turn into the marketers… the salespeople.
We’ve begun to see it in the town meetings and demonstrations. People are talking about move-away-from-pain benefits. They’re speaking – selling – with passion and emotion. Changes are afoot, and they need to be.
My recommendations…
1. Implore your Congressmen and Senators to introduce a bill requiring all members of the government to have to live by the laws they create. No more opting out of social security for government officials, elected officials and bureaucrats – or union members for that matter. And they live with the same health care laws we have to live with.
2. Term limitations are a must. No more than six terms for a Congressman, two terms for a Senator. This wasn’t meant to be a life-long career.
3. No pensions for these people if they serve less than what your local schoolteacher or cop would have to serve to get a pension. They get the same vesting limitations as the rest of us.
4. Consider a Throw-the-Bums-Out movement. Yes there are some good politicians, but they’re few and far between. Need a thorough housecleaning. It’ll take us six years to get rid of them all, but they all need to go.
5. Insist on a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget except in time of war. And then put a strict limit on the amount of time allotted to pay back wartime debts. My personal preference would be to tie the budget to the gross domestic product, but if people want to spend like crazy, let them, and see how the voters feel about the kind of universal tax increases it would take to feed the insatiable government machine, if they constitutionally had to pay for their programs as they go.
The marketing implications are vast…
Every marketing skill will have to be brought to bear and the work will have to be consistent for a long time to come. But it can work. It has worked. Consider the dramatic drop in smoking over the last couple of decades. A function of marketing. Consistent, on-going, almost pervasive marketing, designed to educate individuals about the dangers of tobacco.
It will take time, but these measures will rebuild our economy, and more important, our national character. We can do this, if we will.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Check out my new book. How To Market Your Crap When the Economy is in the Toilet, is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com, or at a discount directly from me. Call me at 800.584.7585 or go to www.marketyourcrap.com. Or you can email your request to mail@ascendmarketing.com, and put the word Book in the subject line.
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