Harley Meyer

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Meyer, Harley (Independent)

Phone: (602) 218-0280
Email: info@harleymeyer.com
Website: www.harleymeyer.com
PO Box 351, Yuma, AZ 85366

Age: 50 (1/1/60, Sioux Falls, SD).

Arizona since: 2002.

Occupation: Math teacher, BCC, since 2009; business owner, several businesses in Mexico, 2004-2008; math teacher, San Luis High School, 2002-2004.

Children: 2.

Religious preference: Protestant.

Education: Teaching licensure, master’s in math education program, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, 2001; B.S., economics with math emphasis, University of Minnesota, 1995; B.S., mathematics, University of Minnesota, 1995.

Political experience includes: None.

Memberships have included: None.

Interests: Mathematics, global economics, fishing, traveling overseas, learning about other cultures, and spending time with my son and family.

Issues:

Political influence: As much as I dislike the man as our former president and all the negative residuals, there is one thing he said that stuck in my mind. President Bush had said that if you are going to have this position (president), you need to have an ideology. And it makes sense. My ideology is the economy.

Top priority: The economy and having it grow again. A simple shift in policy to introduce competition in both foreign and national markets will resolve our persistent economic crisis. Increased competition between Mexico and the U.S. alone will provide nearly $32.1 billion in economic stimulus annually for the U.S. and will stop illegal immigration. Arizona will gain approximately $1 billion in economic stimulus annually from increased competition with Mexico. The economic crisis persists because of structural problems: In almost every business sector in international trade there are companies that have no competition – they have a large market share, they employ cheap labor, and earn net profits of 40 percent to 60 percent. When too much of the global marketplace is dominated with this business model, any form of economic stimuli will not spur economic growth, and reducing taxes on the wealthy will not work either. The only solution is to introduce competition in those markets. This will bring back the middle class, improve tax revenue, save Social Security, stop illegal immigration and bring back manufacturing.

Respected opponent: At this moment there are several I have some respect for, but none that I admire.

Wall Street bailout: It was disorganized, poorly implemented, a transfer of wealth to the top and did not solve the foreclosure problem. In some ways the bailout prevented more serious problems, yet created new problems. Most critics or supporters of the bailout still are missing the core reason of the lingering economic crisis, which to this date has not been addressed. The failure of the bailout was a failure to understand the problem.

Stimulus Act: China and several other countries are also implementing stimulus plans. It is common practice. The only problem is that our stimulus plan is not working. As I mentioned earlier and I will say again, until those structural problems are changed, where there is no competition in the global marketplace, the economy will not grow. The failure of the Obama administration’s policy is the failure to fully understand the problem – this is not a textbook problem, so a textbook solution will not work. You cannot have a healthy economy that has too many companies with large market share, earn net corporate profits from 40 percent to 60 percent, pay poor wages – ranging from $42/month (Bangladesh) to $80/week (Mexico), and still expect to have economic growth. All the Obama administration needs to do is make a simple shift in policy to get the economy moving again.

Health care overhaul: Everyone knows that the health care system needs improvements. Overall the bill is very bad and needs changes; however, there are a few good items in the federal health care package – like ending the practice by insurance companies to exclude coverage based upon “pre-existing conditions.” The bill does not address a core problem that doctors are enslaved in a system that requires them to make profits for a hospital or clinic that go beyond the cost of the needed treatment of the patient with a normal profit for doing business. Until this problem is addressed – selling of health services for the sake of profit beyond the need for patient treatment – the health care system will not improve.