Answer to Economic Woes is in Museum

The answer to all our economic woes lies in a display at the Museum of Church History and Art.

Well, not all our woes, but a lot of them.

So, make a short trek downtown, walk into the museum, and step into a little room titled, "Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution," and uncover what President Obama, John Boehner, and Harry Reid all need to know.

The title says,
"The Public Works Program
Providing Labor, and Stimulating a Pioneer Economy"
Ahh, how that word "stimulating" reminds us of our current affairs, and the "stimulus." What then, we wonder, did they do to "stimulate" the economy back then?

Read:
"Organized in 1850, the Church's Public Works program provided work for immigrant laborers, artisans, and mechanics. The Public Works created an immediate labor market by sponsoring construction projects and setting up shops for skilled craftsmen. By providing employment to thousands of workers, the Church contributed to the well-being of the entire community."

So, what did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do? Simple, simple: It created jobs, and put people to work.

There's a trick that's been lost somewhere along the line.

Instead of pumping cash into the economy, pump jobs into it. Create companies. Back then, they were settling a land, converting it from a wilderness. Today, maybe we would look at our own frontier and have a portion of the jobs be on the Internet.

I think of where we are at today, unemployment running above 9.0. Why would we not go out and create jobs, just start companies so people would be employed? It sounds a whole lot better than just giving people money.

There, again, is that difference of jobs vs. money.

And, as I think back on the spirit of the Public Works program, of how it provided jobs, I recall another story from those days, probably the same year, 1850. Wish I would have saved it. While reading microfilm copies of the Deseret News, I had come to a story of a visitor to the Salt Lake Valley in those days. He spoke of walking the streets of the city, and seeing an industrious people. I believe he might have said not an idle person was to be seen, as in, everyone was seen working.

There must not have been much of an unemployment rate back in the early1850s, then, and that makes sense. If you give people jobs, unemployment drops. That's obvious. There simply is no more direct way of addressing the problem. But, if you give them money, like we do today, well . . . your unemployment rate might be lucky to only be 9.1 percent.