Editorial #99 Purpose of Business and Government
The only things we all have to do in life is make a living, enjoy the fruits of our labors by sharing what we’ve earned and save our soul. My father told me: “if you make the world a better place, you will probably save your soul.” To do this, the formula he gave to me was: live by the core values of fairness, truth, sustainability and have integrity. Simply follow the golden rule.
We make a living so we can house, feed and educate our family to do the same. It is not the government’s job to give us housing, food or educate our children. If we let the government do these things for us we can live in the freest country in the world and we will always be a slave to that government. If we let the government educate our children, the government will teach our children how to be “good slaves” in government.
There are those who think the government should take care of us from the cradle to the grave because this is what politicians are saying and more people are believing it all the time. Politicians promise they will take care of us, if we vote for them. Politicians have been promising this for centuries and have never delivered because it is impossible, unsustainable, not fair or honest, yet they continue to try with the rest of the world the examples of how it has failed.
Businesses do not exist to make jobs. Businesses exist to solve problems. The bigger problem one solves, the more successful one becomes. The business owner cannot do this alone, thus a job is the function of helping the business fix things that cost money if not addressed. If any politician says they will create jobs, this is code for: I will create problems that don’t exist so the government can pay someone to babysit it.
Government is in business to do only three things: to provide security so we can work without worrying about being attacked, provide infrastructure to make it easier and more efficient to make a living and make rules that are fair, honest, sustainable with no self-serving agenda.
All these things will have an expense to the taxpayer. To determine how much should be spent, politicians are supposed to ask how much will it cost if these items were not addressed. To provide security, it practically has no limit if we want to retain our freedom in a capitalistic country. To provide infrastructure, the real expense is in maintain infrastructure and is a cost of doing business. To provide laws, that amount should be decreasing as we already have laws that say thou shall not steal, kill or lie, but the cost of enforcing laws seems to be always increasing. Making laws is easy, enforcing laws is part of our job in making the world a better place by setting a good example.
So to make the world a better place we must all do our part by honoring our laws that keeps things fair and sustainable through our example. We must continue to try to elect politicians, with this understanding, who will be truthful in providing security and infrastructure by using our tax dollars to offset future expenses and not use them to buy votes or give favors to their friends.
This is Keith Kube wishing you the best in making the world a better place.
