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What Could We Do If We Would?

May 21, 2024

I asked AI what adding 100 new jobs that paid at least $50k to a community like Pine Bluff would do and liked the answer.

In short, it would change lives.

Not just the folks earning the salary, but an increased tax base, plus spending, plus pride.

Because even AI identified pride as an essential component for community development.

And Pine Bluff doesn’t have much pride.

Not that much to feel proud of, most of the time.

Top of the list in almost all categories, when you turn that list upside down.

And worse still, it’s low down on a list in a state that ranks 50 in almost every category.

We used to say thank God for Mississippi, but somehow they surpassed us.

Except in water systems.

Jackson can’t give their citizens a steady supply of clean water, and we only have that problem in West Helena, which is across the river from Mississippi.

Even Pine Bluff has good water from the tap.

At least they get that right.

Adding new jobs isn’t that easy.

If you believe conventional wisdom.

Most of the people I talk to want folks to get “regular” jobs.

Work 9-5 in factories and stores.

And bitch and moan when people don’t want to do that.

My idea was something different.

And part of it involved training people in new ways to think.

Pine Bluff is full of new ways to think.

Partly due to the influx of criminal element looking for ways to fund drug habits and gun habits and bad habits.

Like the two guys busted for stealing copper wire from an AT&T project laying new internet cable for city residents.

Or the entrepreneurs who broke into empty houses and ripped all the electrical wiring from the walls to sell copper to junk yards.

And the cops, who must be taking kickbacks, search for the guys stealing copper, but not the scrap metal yard owners who buy the stolen goods.

Slinging meth on street corners, looking for any way to make a few dollars, except for trading time for money.

Criminals get creative.

Even if they’re not smart.

Because even the most creative copper caper won’t generate as much as the most basic bankers or brokers or insurance agents.

Or a lot of internet endeavors.

It’s not always easy to reach the 50k mark online, but it can be done.

Especially with an approach that mirrors a real world work ethic.

Like streaming games.

When my son was a teen, he told me he wanted to be a Youtuber, and stream Call of Duty.

I was all in, but his mother and step-dad were not.

I told him to stream while he played all through high school, and build up content and learn how to make money from it.

They told him to get good grades and study hard, and he decided to be a welder.

Which is a good thing.

He didn’t like school, and he’s doing something he wanted to do, steered there by influences outside of mine.

But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t on to something.

Like you.

Do you like to play video games?

What if you learned how to use Twitch and/or other platforms and literally just started streaming while you played.

With no expectation of earning right away, but learning how to earn.

Twitch streams could be rebroadcast over to other platforms, but they all need some skills, like how to title the upload, how to get good thumbnails, etc.

Just like any other job, there is a learning curve.

And a payoff, if you do the job right.

The same thing would work for an OnlyFans account, which is associated with adult content, but literally offers every other category to cover what folks like to watch.

Or writing books to publish to Amazon.

Or using Amazon online as an affiliate company.

All gigs that could be started for zero cost.

All gigs that won’t grow, unless you focus on learning how to grow it.

It is a simple formula that doesn’t rely on all the economic development dollars being spent to send politicians and their staff and “experts” to other countries to woo companies to move their manufacturing jobs here.

Which is the formula we are relying on now.

Build a warehouse. Spend tax dollars to go elsewhere to beg companies to come here so we can pay folks $15 an hour.

Or…

We could take the million dollar junket to Paris money and put it into a building in downtown Pine Bluff.

Buy a hundred “used” computers from the government and pay a guy $50k a year to service them and take care of the building.

Then train anyone and everyone who walks through the door on how to build an ecommerce business.

How to market an online business.

How to create content and how to do a hundred other little things that all would or could add up to developing a self employed work force all without waiting on or relying on the government to bring jobs to the city.

Now play it out, because it’s not just something poor people in Pine Bluff can do.

Anyone can literally turn on their phone, make a video talking about what they love or like to do, and upload it and go viral.

Or they can do like the lady I saw on Youtube who built a little business around talking about turning 54.

She wanted to make a travel channel about going on cruises solo, but no one watched it.

So she made a video about why she wanted to make a travel channel and got thousands of subscribers and a monthly paycheck.

She made more of those AND her solo cruise travel vids.

Are there strategies and techniques behind it?

Yes.

Can anyone learn those?

Yes.

The question is always… would they?

Saying things to change is easy.