Stop Wasting Our Talent: Why America Can’t Settle for “Good Enough”

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simply we are wasting our talent. What do mean by that? People get upset. You know, I give economic facts reality here. Some, you know, obviously depending on their persuasion, what they bought into what team they’re on. I’m not on a team. Oh, it’s not that bad. We’re still got economic growth could be worse. Lisa was better than Biden. You know, all these various different things. I don’t I don’t like to settle.

I don’t like to settle for good enough. Good enough didn’t get to me to where I am in life. It didn’t good enough. Didn’t get anybody who excelled and good enough. Didn’t get the US hockey team winning the gold medal. It’s unacceptable. I look at the numbers. I look at the numbers across the board and I’m not satisfied. I’m disappointed. It’s a waste. And I’ve been consistent.

with this. I want to show you how consistent actually. I was actually reminded of a column that I wrote about 10 years ago. About 10 years ago, wasted talent. And there’s a line in the movie, the Bronx Tale. Lorenzo and Ella was played by Robert De Niro in the movie Bronx Tale. And his line is the saddest thing in life is wasted.

talent. And it’s got a point. It’s got a point in something that can being around young people and coaching and being able to see what someone’s capable of, or you know what, you how smart they are, what they’re going to be able to do in the future. And you have to remind them, you know, God’s blessed you, you have talent, don’t waste it.

don’t waste your ability. We as a country have so much going for us. This is reality. And actually, you see, take a couple steps back and actually think about it. The natural resources that we have here in this country, quite frankly, our higher education system or university system, best in the world research institutions were protected.

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by two oceans, friendly country to the north, friendly country to the south for all intents and purposes. But you take a look, you take a look at how we’re just kind of getting by. So you’re not getting by, we’re getting by. We’re getting by, you take a look at the numbers that we’ve seen for an extended period of time. Now again, it’s a column I wrote back in 2016.

And at the time, unemployment was at 5%. Again, it’s lower than that. Now it’s at 4.4 right now. Obama was president at the time. 62.9 was the labor participation rate, which wasn’t good. 93 % of the counties 10 years ago in the United States were failed to fully recover after the Great Recession. Again, that was a

big miscalculation by the Biden administration thinking that they could rejigger the economy from inside Washington, DC. Businesses that were dying. Back at the time, 75 % of Americans perceive corruption widespread in our government. And that’s most certainly the case right now, without a doubt, as nothing’s really changed.

malaise. And we got consumer confidence numbers right now, that are lower now than they were when I wrote this in 2016. Many Americans what I said 2016. And don’t don’t tell me it’s not true today. Many Americans are beginning to feel that the American dream is dead, or has been taken from them. Without a doubt, the middle class in America has been hollowing out

Report by the Pew Research Center demonstrates that economic inequality is increasing. They have found the middle classes dissipating. More Americans find themselves in either the upper or lower income households. And these numbers have gotten worse instead of better. I wrote, again, should sound familiar, regular listeners, we believe there’s an inverse relationship between the size of government and a country’s growth prospects. The smaller the size of government,

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There is the greater opportunity for a dynamic economy, vibrant growth, upward mobility. The larger a government becomes is like taking a trip down Hyatts Road to Serfdom. ACDC is highway to hell. They both end up same destination. We are sending more and more of our money to Washington DC to have our lives run by out of touch establishment elites. Seeing early reminiscence of capital city.

in the literary and film series The Hunger Games, Washington DC has become one our nation’s wealthiest areas. However, it’s not a place where products are designed and manufactured. It’s a place where insiders cut deals, rules are made, taxes are collected and the American worker and entrepreneur is royally screwed. Again, this is, I keep going back to 2000. I do.

But I did it in 2016 as well. And I quote Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are. Remember the year 2000, computer bug was going to crash the world’s computers. Jennifer Lopez was dancing around half naked. Derek Jeter and the Yankees beat the Mets, first subway series. We were ranked second in world economic freedom. Fast forward to 2016. Again, computers are in everyone’s fingertips and people making

taking pictures themselves and Jennifer Lopez still dancing around half naked. This is 2016 2026. She’s still dancing around half naked. Anyway, we were kind of on top of the world land of opportunity.

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Can you time 2016 taking a look at a myriad of different numbers, profits, relation and GDP, all of these things. There’s a an institute called the Frazier Institute talks about economic freedom of the world and just showing how all of these things have just declined. And I can look to today as well. And it’s a very similar scenario. Tax competitiveness, you name it.

All of this all of this not doing well now again, I am I’m hoping and praying that Donald Trump

I almost reassume what he did in his first term and do more to get out of the way. Get out of the way, not be involved in government. He’s taken a bit of a different tact without a doubt in this term from tariffs to take in positions in the private sector, and it needs to go away.

Again, I always like to look to history. You take a look at Rome, and I did in this column back in 2016. One looks to the history of ancient Rome, the parallels are striking. Rome, like the United States, was conceived as a stand against a monarchy. Both nations very suspicious of concentrated power and authority.

United States and Rome established republics that enshrined checks and balances, separation of powers and the protection of the individual with certain rights that were held sacrosanct. This is a recipe for success. The great advances in individual liberty led to prosperity without precedent in world history. The history of classical Rome lasted 1000 years. The first half of republic, the second, an imperial autocracy. The conditions, events and

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How they transform from one to the other is frighteningly familiar. And again, talk about some stubborn lessons of history. No people who lost their character kept their liberties, power that is shackled and dispersed is preferable to power that is unrestrained and centralized. The here and now is rarely as important as tomorrow.

And again, I’ve talked about this before.

virtue, courageous honesty, other things stressed in Rome, dignity, goodwill, loyalty, sense of duty, candor. I’ve often thrown in other words that I like in Greek words, vilotemo, various different other things there. The connection between character and liberty is powerful. Liberty, by which we talk about the rule of law, respect,

for and protection of the lives, rights, property and contracts of others is the only social agreement that requires character. No other system, especially socialism, asks much more of you than other than to keep quiet, pay your taxes and go get yourself killed when the state sends you off to war. The absence of character produces chaos and tyranny. Its presence makes liberty possible. Rome Rose.

from nothing and sustained itself as a great entity for centuries because of strong character. Again, what happened? Okay, Roma eroded welfare institute, welfare state instituted little by little. Again, people craving power. What’s in it for me? What am I entitled to?

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self reliant people abandoned responsibility, discipline, property rights. And I’m not going to really I’ve done this before talked about the history and you know, I would highly suggest one read about how it all fell apart. Again, delayed gratification on the one that went away something that I believe in all the time. Rome, Rome drifted and

We’re drifting. were drifting 10 years ago. We’re still drifting. Again, wasted talent. We could be doing so much more. Now these things that are wrong, but I’ve been very consistent over the years. This was 2016. I wrote this back in 2007, 2008, wrote a similar piece as well of things, simple things, simple things that we could do to

get ourselves back on track. Again, I’ve talked about simplifying the tax code. No more loopholes, no handouts, no giveaways, balanced budget amendment. Don’t spend more and you’re taken in it’s pretty straightforward. Reforming the regulatory process and we’ve done a little bit with that we can do so much more. No more judge, jury and executioner from the various different acronym agencies that are out there.

term limits and I’ve talked about this is basically not just termed out of office, but termed out of Washington. An individual should not be allowed to work any more than eight years in total as an elected official, it should be forbidden to work in any capacity as lobbyist after serving in public office. It’s a good one. Another one, which is very, very important, break up monopolies and I’m not talking just banking and media and that’s what I focused on.

back in 2016, but agriculture as well across the Across the board, they all have to be dismantled. We want to have small businesses thrive. Once again, these monopolies were they’re not acting in our best interest by any stretch of the imagination. Non interventionist foreign policy doctrine. Candice 2016.

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We’ve been in nearly perpetual war for a century time for that to stop. That was 2016 and it still remains the same. We haven’t done anything on that. Free trade only when the playing field is level. How can you have a free trade agreement with a country that is still has indentured servants or slaves? At the time, they were talking about the trans position. It was a Trans Pacific Partnership that was a TPP deal at the time. And there was some odd things are there again.

I’m all for free trade as long as guess what? The playing field is level. Immigration reform. We want people that want to be Americans. We’re doing a horrendous job of assimilating people to our society. We are witnessing the Balkanization of America. Again, I quoted the old Michael Savage, borders, language, culture. No more subsidies. Time. Tired of paying for other people’s Teslas. It’s finally gone away. Government should be forbidden from diverting taxpayer money to any private concern.

It’s not the duty of government to pick and choose winners and losers. No special tax deal should be given to any private concern on the federal or local level. Everyone should be, as our Declaration of Independence espouses, equal under the law. Entitlement reform, basic algebra, Social Security system, and many pensions are unsustainable. We need to rethink the entire concept of retirement and what it means to be generous of people, what it means to generations of people who will be

living much longer and healthier lives. Welfare reform. Again, our nation’s number one drug problem. Too many people that have become addicted to this way of life and we need to break the cycle. The Great Society programs by every metric have been a failure. Children at risk of becoming a part of the cycle need to be attending institutions that provide for them what they’re not getting in the home. Again, all of those traits that the Romans used to believe in.

Get out of healthcare, housing and college education. As soon as the government gets involved, the costs go up. Bring the open and free market to these industries and their products and services will be priced according to what the market will bear.

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We have all this talent potential and yet we are letting it slip away. 12 items eyesight are by no stretch, difficult thing to get done if we put our mind to it. Again, that was me being naive in 2016. Again, these ideas will get you killed. It is what it is. The American people are an angry lot.

Not an optimistic one. And that’s tragedy. Small business creation. America is running at its lowest level since the 1970s. 2016. Same scenario today. All new jobs in the United States over the past 30 years have come from firms five years old and younger. That dynamic, rugged, individualist nature, once great economic agent has gone missing and we need to get it back. We lost our mojo. We have the talent and ability and it’s now time to stop wasting it. You know,

Man, I would have been made for a pretty good State of the Union address, don’t you think? And you would have been done. You would have been done in less than 15 minutes. Stop wasting our talent. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.