The Key to Sustainable Job Growth for Florida

By James Marshal, FloridaToday.com, Commentary
Putting Florida back on the path to sustainable state GDP growth and employment will require a significant measure of fortitude during this year's legislative session. To succeed, we must be willing to take the road less traveled that includes doing the things that other states won't do or can't do. Florida can become the primary hub of entrepreneurial activity and economic growth in the US if legislators are willing to reposition our state to become the "Capital" of capital investment. For investment capital is like sunshine to a Florida orange tree. Without sunshine, you'll have no growth and the economic winter will simply be unbearable.


To achieve this, we must first understand that capital investment will always flow to the places where it is treated best. Where the proverbial 'red carpet' is rolled out for it and given celebrity status in such a fashion that it wouldn't ever want to leave. On the other hand, capital that is treated poorly and beaten upon with whips and chains in the form of taxes and heavy regulation, shall flee as refugees would from a war torn country. This can be exemplified by noting the day in which President Obama unveiled his intent to wage war upon the banking industry whereby a ten month rally in asset prices immediately reversed course as capital fled for the boarder.


Strengthening Florida's economy doesn't need to be complicated. We simply need to do more of the things that attract capital and less of the things that make it run in fear. We need to understand that investment capital represents a fundamental ingredient in the evolution of an idea into a sustainable job producing entity that in turn will reward its surrounding communities with sustainable consumer activities. The key word here is "sustainable". Spending borrowed money to create jobs that ultimately end when the task is done or when the money runs out is unsustainable and only favors politicians who need stronger job numbers to win their reelections. Their short term game is at the long term expense of our collective economic prosperity.


Long term jobs are created and sustained by those who provide goods and services that other states and nations want and need and will purchase. Therefore, for Florida to strengthen its own GDP, leadership must develop more of the products and services that the world wants and focus less upon that which the world doesn't want. We must become the absolute best in our identified economic strengths. Recognizing the areas where we shall have a huge competitive advantage within the world while avoiding those areas where we won't.


Economic life isn't too far detached from the natural cycle of wildlife populations. As many may recall from their days in science class, we long ago learned that nature as a way of keeping animal populations in balance. In an environment where a given species has too many predators, the population will be reduced until the point that the predators either leave or starve from lack of food. In the opposite environment where the population has grown too large, predators increase in numbers as their food source remains abundant which ultimately brings the population back into proper balance. If this weren't the case, the species could grow beyond its available food capacity and both the species and predator would starve. Government is represented as the economic predator while private industry is represented today as a deer in the headlights of an oncoming bullet train (pun intended).


Government, both state and national, has grown too large to be sustainable as its food source population (private industry) is being over harvested (taxes, fees, regulation, etc). Government, or rather predator payrolls and new hires have grown while the private sector has steadily lost. This cycle will certainly end in tears as it always has and always will for those who have become dependent upon a strong predatory Government. It's just a matter of time before the predators turn upon themselves for food as what remains of the private industry retreats into less hostile lands or into hibernation so as to survive what shall become a long cold economic winter.

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