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Contributors
J.F. Kelly, Jr. - Contributor
J.F.
Kelly, Jr. is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who
writes on current events and military subjects. He is a resident
of Coronado, California. [go to Kelly index]
 It’s
Still the Economy
Poll
the pocketbook...
[J. F. Kelly, Jr.] 10/29/04
As
I write this, the presidential election campaign is, thankfully,
in its final throes. Candidates were scrambling to win the
support of a rapidly diminishing group of undecided voters,
grasping at any issue that could swing them. Whatever you
may have thought about the quality of the respective campaigns,
it was certainly close enough to make it exciting.
My
own highest priority in supporting a candidate has been,
not surprisingly, I’m sure, national security. What would
you expect from someone who spent most of his adult years
in the Navy? National security is also high among the concerns
of most Americans from soccer moms to NASCAR dads. High,
perhaps but apparently not highest, even in a Navy community
like greater San Diego.
A
recent poll by The San Diego Union-Tribune had readers
rank the importance of a number of local, national and international
issues. The war on terror was ranked as important by 68.9%
of the respondents. The national economy, on the other hand,
was ranked as important by a whopping 82.7%. Even the war
in Iraq, the key theme in both campaigns, came in lower at
72.3%. Other hot topics like health care, the global environment
and immigration were far behind at 59%, 55.2% and 47.8%,
respectively. Perhaps Bill Clinton was right. It’s the economy,
stupid!
I’ve
argued that terrorism is the greatest concern we face today
and without national security, little else will matter. That
may appear to be the case when one is financially secure
but priorities are often different when one is struggling
to make ends meet. For people having a hard time providing
for their families-- a not insignificant percentage of the
population, by the way-- national and international issues
tend to fade somewhat in importance compared, say, with the
immediate need to come up with a rent or mortgage payment.
As Stanford’s Professor Michael Boskin recently wrote in
a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, “if you’re unemployed,
you’re 100% unemployed, not 5.4% unemployed.”
Economic
issues rule. Examples abound. Take Northern Ireland. It is
blessedly peaceful of late, but not because the Catholics
and Protestants have suddenly decided to get together and
love one another right now. During a recent visit, my wife
and I toured the formerly troubled areas in Londonderry and
Belfast. Signs of social segregation still are visible and
distinct Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods remain but
at least people weren’t shooting and bombing each other.
I
asked our tour guide, a graduate student with an Irish father
and Buddhist mother, probably the only Buddhist Irishman
on the island, why peace had suddenly broken out. “It’s the
economy,” he replied, politely omitting the word “stupid”.
As prosperity came to booming Northern Ireland, it lifted
all boats. People were far too busy working and enjoying
the fruits of their labors to worry much about the “troubles.”
Take,
as another example, the insurgency that is hampering our
efforts to pacify Iraq. While there are, clearly, professional
and international terrorists at work there as instigators,
the majority of the insurgents are unemployed Iraqi males,
mostly youths, with few prospects for jobs. They become the
willing tools of terrorist organizers because they have the
time for it. As my mother used to say, “Idle hands are the
Devil’s helpers.”
Building
an economy that creates enough jobs to provide for full or
nearly full employment won’t necessarily erase all deep seated
social or religious hatred, but a good job and steady family
income sure helps most people to put things in perspective.
Psychologist
Abraham Maslow’s human needs hierarchy taught us that the
basic needs, like personal and family security, trump all
other concerns. Only when the basic needs are satisfied,
do most people have time to worry about global issues. Politicians
ignore this at their peril. CRO
copyright
2004 J. F. Kelly, Jr.
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