A common-sense approach to restoring economic prosperity

A common-sense approach to restoring economic prosperity

Posted on November 19th, 2012 by Ricky Sprague

People have proposed any number of solutions to our current financial problems, from “the fiscal cliff,” to “increased government spending.” But one problem with these ideas is that they do not take into account a common-sense approach. It’s only by using common sense ideas that we can hope to solve all our problems. To do so with compassion must also be given top priority.

One reason why compassion and common sense ideas are so rarely employed is that so few people actually have those virtues. I am not plagued by such deficiencies. That’s why I often come up with ideas that are compassionate and common-sensible. These ideas seem completely obvious to me, and yet, these ideas have never been implemented before, anywhere, because, if they had been implemented, then they would be unnecessary, because the world would be perfect and wouldn’t need compassionate common sense ideas.

I have a very common sense idea to end high unemployment. My idea is that the president should tell his new Secretary of Business to create voluntary guidelines mandating that all businesses hire a minimum number of people every year. The great thing about this plan is, it would give businesses a framework by which they could plan their business models (i.e., “I’ll hire this number of new employees, because the government told me to, and then my productivity will increase by whatever times the number of new employees, who will make more money and therefore buy more products, which I will then have to make to keep up with new demand that everyone will have, because of all the extra money they have.”).

The companies’ hiring requirements would be based on the number of employees they already have. A bigger company could afford to hire more employees, so they would voluntarily have to. If they hire more than their assigned quota, they would get added benefits, like the knowledge that they were fulfilling their end of the social contract that everyone signs when they’re born here and start breathing our clean air and driving on our great roads. Those who only hired the minimum number of new employees would be taxed, and those taxes would go into a fund that would pay for unemployment for all the people they didn’t hire.

The great thing about my plan is that the new jobs would be geared toward each individual’s area of interest and/or expertise. For example, if you look at my author’s photograph, you might think that I would be a good male model. While that might be true, my real skills and interests lie in being a movie star. That is why I would get hired by Warner Bros to star in big movies for them, such as the upcoming Batman reboot. I would play Batman, because they would be required to hire me. But I think that they’ll see it just makes good business sense to hire me to play Batman, because I will bring a lot of great common sense ideas to the role. For instance, I think that in the next Batman film, Batman should sleep with Catwoman. A lot. And I think that Catwoman should be played by a man, preferably Wesley Snipes. This would give me a great opportunity to test my common-sense theories of method acting.

To be sure, I know what you’re probably thinking: You’re probably thinking, “Ricky, I agree with what you’re saying completely. It makes perfect sense to me and I don’t know why nobody has instituted this plan before now. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who are insane, and if you give them a job, they will probably sneak around to other employees’ desks, and poo in the desk drawers, and then when they open their drawers and reach in to get their files or what have you, they’ll stick their hand in poo, and they’ll touch poo.” Well, I can certainly see your point, which is why I’ve already thought of a contingency to cover all the drawer-pooers out there. The great thing about my plan is, for those people, there will be special jobs created. Construction workers will be hired to build offices stocked with desks that have poo-ready drawers. The drawer-pooers would be paid based on how many drawers they fill every day. Someone in the government jobs bureau would decide the going rate for a poo-full drawer. This will also employ people to clean the drawers every night, so they can be re-filled with poo the next day.

The great thing about my plan is, it’s a “win-win.”

Today we have a rare opportunity to decide the future of our country. Do we want to live in a common-sense world, where all of our so-called “problems” are nothing more than “opportunities to institute policies that are self-evidently practical,” or do we want to live in the world we’ve been living with for as long as we can remember? I know what gets my vote. The one about the common sense world. The great thing about my plan is, it makes more common sense to implement it than to not implement it. The only possible negative effect that I can see is that it will be too effective, and we won’t know what to do with all our prosperity. Of course, at that point, the president can create a Secretary of Prosperity (which would be another great new job) to help us figure it out, in a common-sense way.

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Ricky Sprague

Ricky Sprague occasionally writes and/or draws things. He sometimes animates things. He has a Twitter account and he has a blog. He scripted this graphic novel about Kolchak The Night Stalker. He is really, really good at putting links in bios.