Punchline: This economy makes job satisfaction a thing of the past … and in the future, will people be happy forking over their earnings to the government or will they find real satisfaction when holding their hands out to the government?
* * * * *
Excerpted from RCP: Under Obama, Reducing Choices for the Future, April 5, 2010
As Americans, we get such satisfaction when we believe the work we are doing — in workplaces and in community activities and voluntary associations — is serving interests broader than our own.
We’re making use of our talents, whatever they may be, to make a contribution to society.
It’s hard to get that kind of satisfaction in this kind of economy.
People say, “At least I’ve got a job.”
Not a satisfying job, not one that it makes full use of their talents and interests, not one that provides a sense of earned success.
Just a job, a source of income.
The kind of job in which you keep looking at the clock, counting the time before you can leave, counting the hours until the weekend comes.
The economy we enjoyed between 1983, when the Ronald Reagan tax cuts kicked in, and 2007, when the housing market collapsed, provided many more jobs in which people could gain such satisfaction.
You could make a living as a master carpenter, as an actor or sewing quilts because steady economic growth and low inflation meant expanded markets for custom goods.
You could do work you really wanted to do. You didn’t have to settle for a data-entry or bolt-attaching job.
The economy we have now doesn’t do that.
Full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/05/under_obama_reducing_choices_for_the_future.html
The Homa Files 
Leave a comment