California Economic Summit

Great Minds meet to discuss how to "cultivate job growth through innovation, entrepreneurship...."

Yesterday the important people (and you know who they are) met for a series of talks and panel discussions on the future of "economic development" in the San Joaquin Valley of California. I wasn't expecting to find a libertarian tea party, but I was surprised by the level of talk that revolved around protectionism, heavy handed government meddling and economic shortsightedness. Particularly because some of the presentations were billed with names like "unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit." It was more like unleashing the power of government to protect entrenched interests!

After some introductory remarks about the "entrepreneurial spirit" and the wealth of the area by Congressman McNerney, the mayor of Stockton gave a few remarks.

Mayor Chavez held up the recent decision of the City of Stockton to deny Wal-Mart permission to build a new larger store in the city as an example of the wonderful things the city was doing to help the poor people of the area. He repeated the theme that "we won't be bullied or intimidated by Wal-Mart" and said something about the "threat" of Wal-Mart. He ended with "we won't let Stockton be known as 'the discount city!'" Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it didn't seem to me that the crowd responded very positively to the thought of an outright ban on Wal-Mart.

The question in my mind is "what power does Wal-Mart have?" How can Wal-Mart threaten anyone or intimidate? The mayor's comments are 180 degrees from reality. Wal-Mart can't force anyone to shop at their stores, they don't have the power to make anyone do anything. Wal-Mart, like every other store, has to rely on persuasion to try to entice a free person to shop there. Contrast that with the threats from Wal-Mart's competitors. The competitors organize "grass roots" efforts through threats and intimidation, they make anti-Wal~Mart websites and even an anti-Wal~Mart movie. The labor unions, who depend on Wal~Mart's competitors, threaten political leaders with promises of organizing against elected leaders unless they exercise governmental power to force people to shop at their stores. In other words, it's the labor unions and competitors who tell the political leaders "either keep out Wal~Mart or you won't be elected again."

So, I ask, who is intimidating whom? Who is the bully here? It isn't even the labor unions or the activists; they may act like bullies and talk like bullies, but really, the labor unions and the activists have no power to stop anyone from shopping anywhere. No, only the government is the real bully here. The government is acting as the codependent enabler for the bullying activists and labor unions by stopping people from shopping where they prefer and by stopping a successful legitimate business from operating. Only the government has that sort of power. That's what's so insulting about the mayor's comments.

Next, the panel on "unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit" spoke. One of the panelists, a member of the "winegrape commission," complained about the terrible effects of cheap wine from Australia "coming in." The irony seemed to be lost on most people. No one questioned why the entrepreneurial spirit of the Australian winemakers is suddenly a bad thing if it competes with the members of my group.

I was waiting, maybe foolishly, for the next panel on "Encouraging 'Smart Growth'" to explain or at least make some argument why so-called "smart growth" is better than non-smart growth, but I was disappointed. The issue of "smart growth" is a book in itself, but in a nutshell, it's a set of mandates designed to keep the moderately successful people away from good places to live, and to reserve the best land and homes for the truly deserving super-wealthy. All others are directed by government policy to live in high rise apartments (high density) next to bus lines that take them to their government designated "power centers" or "employment centers" (to achieve the government mandated jobs/homes "balance"). So called "smart growth" is really an incredible set of principles, you should look it up on Google. The last time these principles were used was in the Soviet Union.

The idea that many of the government leaders seemed to fully embrace, without discussion or debate or thoughtful consideration, the collectivistic principles promoted by this "smart growth" group is frightening.

One of the principles mentioned a few times was how we have to "preserve agriculture" because it's such an important part of our economy. Sounds fine, except that if a farm is making money, why does the law need to command someone to "keep farming?" No one ever answered that question. Made me think of the ideal of the simple pastoral people promoted by both Thomas Jefferson and the communist Chinese.

After the break, we heard a stirring lecture on the benefits of "renewable" energy. Which was sort of great until they started explaining how all these fantastic technologies -- bio-diesel, wind and solar power -- need government "help" or tax money. If someone can make a device that creates electric power, won't people buy it? That's the fallacy that panel was trying to sell us on. In other words, what they weren't saying was that "we can make power that is not as good, and costs more than what we have now -- but we have a sincere belief that people should buy our product even though they don't want to -- and we would like the government to force people to buy our product." (Presumably, because people are too stupid to know what is good for them?)

Lastly, the panel on education told us how much better the schools are doing than in 1999. There were some stats provided that I haven't evaluated. So who knows, maybe student performance has improved slightly since the dismal nadir of '99. I sort of got the impression that it got so bad that Johnny couldn't count to four back then, but today he can count to seven, so it's a "great improvement."

The Dean of Workforce and Economic Development at Delta College defended, after a question, the "nurse lottery system" where people are accepted in the nursing program by a roll of the dice. She explained this wasn't as bad as it sounded and not just anyone can apply. All the applicants have to be "good enough." It was heartening to know that the sick and elderly would be cared for not by people who are the best qualified, but don't worry, mom's nurse is "good enough." I can see that in a new slogan: "San Joaquin, the land where most critical medical people are probably good enough."

I wish I could have asked a question of that last panel, but they yammered so long they ran the clock out on questioning. But I was impressed by the comments of John Solis, Director of the Workforce Investment Board. He told us how hard it was to find jobs for young people and that he hears how they don't have the skills or work ethic. My question would have been something like this: "Mr Solis, if a Fortune 500 company wanted to expand their operations in Stockton and hire 800 people, with a large number of those jobs being offered to anyone who wants to work hard and be paid a fair wage, wouldn't that help young people get a start in the working world? And what if that company comes from Bentonville, Arkansas?