The Triple Threat

In sports, a triple threat is an exceptional athlete who has superior skills in three disciplines that produces offense and/or defense to win games. In economics, a triple threat is government action that keeps a team from winning. An athlete is a teammate whose primary concern is helping his team. For some reason today, government does not see itself as a teammate for free enterprise. Instead, it pursues policy through the beguilement of purporting to be for the good of the public order. They are in fact promoting ideological philosophical concepts for the management of society, not for the good of its order.

The United States of America represents a unique business model. Fifty-percent of the adult non-farm workforce is employed by a business of 25 employees or less. Fifty-percent of the workforce is employed by large business. Large business supplies the accumulation of capital necessary to conduct research, make capital expenditures for long-term development, and compete for projects of large economic scale. Small business entrepreneurs provide the innovation, the flexibility, and the efficiency to make the large business more proficient. This model does not exist to our extent anywhere else in the world. It is the basis of the greatest economic engine the world has ever known.

Yet governments continue to assail this model for the benefit of social engineering without any consideration for what it is doing to the freedom and integrity of the human spirit.

Our system is now under attack on an international basis.

Last week, China, through its federal reserve protocol, devalued the Yuan 1.9%. It was a record devaluation. The supposed purpose of the action is to make a country’s manufactured goods cheaper to purchase in other countries to increase exports. Such an action is always criticized because it could trigger a currency war resulting in other countries devaluing their currencies and destabilizing exchange rates. Little has been mentioned of the real problem facing China and why they are struggling with a free floating Yuan. They are communists. They do not operate pursuant to free market mechanisms. Therefore, their currency cannot float freely. They do not have a mature bond market, court system, bankruptcy procedure, or equity markets capable of adjusting to economic downturns. Their banks respond to five-year monetary goals. They report liquidity needs to the federal reserve as proscribed by a formula issued by the government. Communism is a command economy dictated from the top down. The reason they’re having trouble with their currency, and therefore their exports, is they do not know the true cost of their manufacturing. And they do not know the true value of their currency traded against other reserve currencies.

When the Soviet Union failed, it was another example of why communism doesn’t work economically. But the Soviet Union was contained behind the Iron Curtain. It had very little trade or banking relations with the West. As late as 1992, you could not wire money in and out of Moscow. Therefore, the collapse was self-contained. China, on the other hand, made the decisions that communism does not work economically, but that it was still the best form of government to manage society. They are wrong. You cannot have half freedom. If you’re not free in society, you’re not free economically, and vice versa. Their currency is simply a reflection of the shakiness of their banking system. When a final correction arrives exposing the true value of the Yuan, it could be devastating to other economies closely aligned with China.

Our country’s leadership is not addressing this situation. China has launched its own world bank. Why? It is an extension of an effort to control money and banking by communist formulas rather than allowing the free market to set rates. By allowing China to continue to act in this manner, large international businesses in America are threatened. It will particularly jeopardize American corporations who have invested huge funds to build manufacturing plants in mainland China.

Dodd-Frank is a piece of federal legislation named for its authors in the Senate and House to re-write banking regulation in this country following the financial crisis of 2008. In a nutshell, it is over-regulation. Its stated purpose was to reign in Wall Street greed. Its recognized purpose is to eliminate community banks. The U.S. Treasury has openly stated that they intend to restructure the United States’ banking system into a large bank only platform. It is the government’s intention to reduce the number of banks to a few large banks with branches throughout the country. In this system, the government is a direct partner in the banking system, not just a regulator. The overlooked result will be the lack of access to capital for small business owners and entrepreneurial startups. Innovation is often spawned from a local need or circumstance. A large bank only system with money center banks in large cities will seldom see the need or the opportunity to fund small business. The personal relationship of a community bank will be lost. This is a direct threat to small banks and small business owners in the United States, and therefore a direct threat to the American business model.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) continues to issue and render decisions that only consider social policy and not business policy. There are over 30 million small business owners in the United States. Of these, 20 million are family owned. Of the employees of the family owned businesses, seven are members of the immediate and extended family. Ten million of the businesses are Christian owned.  These small business owners list as their reasons for going into business: spend more time with family, contribute to the community, provide future opportunity for their children, maintain a moral lifestyle, make a profit. You have to get to reason number 5 before the profit motive is listed. These Americans simply want to run their lives, pursue their values, and exercise their religious beliefs as they see fit and best for their family. It is this motivation that drives them to be small business owners and contribute to this great American economy. To deny or restrict them from the benefit of exercising their faith or their values at the altar of someone else’s moral values is an affront to the Pilgrims who came here in 1620 seeking freedom, both in religion and commerce.

Critical to the moral imperative of the pursuit of happiness is freedom to pursue business and commerce as one desires. Starting or operating a family owned business is a moral decision, not just an economic one. We do not exist to serve the state and yield summarily to the government’s dictates on what is the proper moral course for our lives. Our faith is a much more reliable compass.

True freedom allows for individuals to make decisions in the best interest of their families, both economically and socially. Freedom results not only in the Adam Smith equation of setting price and determining products, but in the structure of the greater system. This has been our country’s model – large and small businesses working in concert to produce economic prosperity and unrestricted moral decisions in the pursuit of happiness.

Government should be a teammate to facilitate freedom and the American model. It should not be a threat.

My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.

What do you believe?