U.S. Economic Plan 2009: The Path to Economic Independence

Are you ready to create a new Nation?

 

Recently, I took a hiatus from blogging heavily by playing an old game called Colonization. (Sid Meier, of Civilization fame, developed Colonization.) Now, the game is nearly 15 years old, the graphics suck, and the play is slow and antiquated. However, it does one thing fairly well: it mirrors the ideas of trade, money, tax hikes, and infrastructure building, or in short, the economic planning of a fledgling nation.

 

We no longer are fighting for independence from a tyrannical king, but we Americans are fighting the forces of Globalization during the midst of a once-in-lifetime economic mess. Housing sector damaged. Heavy industry nearly gone. Financial institutions teetering on the brink of collapse. The United States is no longer like it once was during its economic heyday of 1946-1972, before I was born.

 

In my lifetime, the forces of international competition from Japan, China, India, Mexico, Brazil and our former cold war foe, Russia, among others, have left us mired in a quandary of our own making: stuck believing the once considered impervious industrial might may resurrect while under investing in education and technology and overlooking real budgetary and fiscal problems for the last 25 years. And the solutions to these often opposing forces will require great sacrifice and a new vision to stem the tide of a soon-to-be overwhelming problem of under utilization and individual obsolesce.

 

We cannot continue to ignore serious flaws in how we promote our nation’s success or fail to compete in a new international landscape.

 

Investment and New Trade. How we maximize trading partners is as much internal as it is external. We have logically tried to develop trading partners that can sustain and merit such ties. However, how many avenues or ventures have we short-changed in order to help another nation at the expense of developing a new product or technology base in America? Investment in eco-friendly and next generation technology has to be promoted to keep America at the pinnacle of world economy. Resting on our laurels of the 20^th century is not an option.

 

Therefore, these would be my recommendations if I had the ear of new President:

 

$200 billion in immediate investments will be made in the U.S. auto industry over a period of 4 years. We will revamp the assembly lines; construct models that not only achieve high fuel economy, but will use electric, hydrogen, natural gas and battery designs. As a result, many of the service stations we currently use, will also see much modification and upgrades. Road projects will be reflected in this new technology that all Americans must familiarize themselves with. This does not mean that every worker currently employed via this industry will stay – the industry will and has to become leaner and more efficient across the board.  A $4,000 voucher for new “eco-vehicle” purchases will buttress these new programs while getting older, less efficient vehicles off American roads.  Which leads us to the next program.

 

 

$125 billion in environmental programs will be afforded over the next four years. These industries include solar, wind, geothermal (in concert with housing) and tidal/hydro programs will be researched, implemented and launched. The immediate deployment of green workers in “green alleys”, those with all ready depressed housing markets, will result in improving current homes while harnessing designs for next-generation housing. Water usage, natural resource depletion and pressing environmental issues must be met head on by our scientists and business leaders. This broad investment will spur independent and private development with the hopes of turning America into a far more effective and efficient country. It will also lead to an “exportable commodities” that will be our way of stemming Global Warming and improving the world’s health. We will be the world leader in environmental investment, incorporating technology, manufacturing ideas and data systems into the mix. We will also assist those companies that create environmental programs, across all sectors, through tax incentives.

 

$125 billion will be afforded in additional funding of education in various programs related to these and other new technologies. Our kids, our parents, and even grandparents, must be adept at using all levels of innovation and global tools to compete and succeed in this world. Many private sector partners will introduce America to these skills quickly. We can no longer wait to disseminate these skills to only the financially well off or tech savvy. Each of us needs to learn everyday – some need to catch up to their peers around the world. The new technology officer of the administration will work with the top information technology firms, small-but-innovative outfits and large-scale businesses to adopt both at home and abroad a learning network that can educate and alleviate education and technology gaps apparent in our society.

 

$200 Billion in direct funding of infrastructure projects and urban planning will be instituted. Some of these projects may have “to tear down in order to create” because we have misused land and placed housing developments in areas that do more harm or cost us opportunities to support our population as it increases in size. Americans most affected by these projects will be adequately and uniquely compensated in that they will garner first access to the “eco-houses” we intend to build, if they desire. Inconvenient though this seems, the long-term is what we are striving for.

 

Our destiny as a great nation depends on immediate action. As intrusive as it does or may appear, doing nothing or waiting for a market solution to appear on the horizon may prolong a painful readjustment to economic forces. Many of your neighbors need help now. Waiting is time lost to an enemy that has no time constraints.

We are not a nation of haves and have nots. We are an American nation that fought and won freedom time and time and time again. We are all sharers of this land’s great abundance. We have to promote as much our economic fairness as we should promote the ability to grasp for that extraordinary potential of the human spirit and garner the rewards of that spirit. We will be better each day ahead – together, as one nation on a blessed mission.

Having the boots, roads, homes, vehicles and necessities to an independent life are at the foundation of this nation. We are all better when our neighbor can assist us readily and we in turn can assist them. This is our way of assisting – to promote economic diversification, establish new exportable commodities, rebuild the highways and highways of the human mind to a better, lasting prosperity. The long-term will see a better America for this investment that will lead to incalculable job growth, a technological superiority and ingenuity, yet envisioned.

 

This would be my plan.

 

And all this from a 15-year old game…

 

 

The 4th of July: A day of reflection on America’s past, present and future

As we go into the 232^nd year of our nation’s birth, we are faced with an inordinate amount of negative news that takes away from the pleasures and prosperity of being American.

Fuel and food prices are rising daily. Wage deterioration and job losses are consistently highlighted on the tube. Energy conservation and constrictions, environmental issues and policies and safety and security strategies are, in essence, all tied together by the fact that we, as human beings, have only this one world, and it is not unlimited in resources, but it is boundless in the harm it can do to us, if we allow it.

We are also reminded of these matters by the presidential election of 2008. A race highlighted by the 1^st woman and 1^st African-American to realistically run for the highest office in the land.  A political race with a man known first as a 5 ½ year veteran of a Vietnam prison camp, then as the oldest man to contend for the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address.

 

As this takes place, in the distant backdrop comes the idea of sports. The way many escape their problems and woes of 8-6 workday, complaining spouses and children, overbearing bosses and unhelpful nosey neighbors, and the fact, this world is perceived as worse than the world of our childhood, or our father’s childhood. In verity, it is only the changing faces of leadership and altered ways to communicating that may be at the crux of this worsening outlook we perceive.

But even these sports have gone astray in our minds.

The athletes seem ever more jaded – with the moronic media and money made fueling their contempt for us, the fans – and their gloss and glimmer is faded before we ever get to know them. The scandals, gassed up by online sites, radio blowhards (Rush Limbaugh as a well-paid version of this group) and the Extremely Stupid Pundits of News (ESPN) who drive recklessly, all over the ‘free’ airways, bastardizing the concept of ‘a scandal’ while in search of some mythical creature called: The Truth.

Amoral ownerships require new branding of their stadiums, new revenue streams (from that branding) and shameless promotion of those well-paid jaded athletes that are endemically tied to those scandals aforementioned. These owners will threaten to ‘take their team and go elsewhere’ if they do not receive new stadium deals on the taxpayers’ dole. Hundreds of millions (or more) spent on luxury palaces where, if a typical fan making under $50,000 a year comes, they will be lucky to visit once in a decade. But that’s American Capitalism buttressed by socialistic bailouts for the wealthy. And the battle of the billionaires and millionaires wages on the breaking backs of cup-of-Joe America, who clocks in and out for dollars these men wouldn’t bend over to pick up.

There is no joy in Mudville.

A place where a mighty Casey would strike out, bearing the weight of all failures on his broad shoulders.

America once had broad shoulders – now wrecked by the frivolity of politics, backroom dealing and undermining the American Dream for a quick sawbuck – but she is now in the midst of a maelstrom of her own unfortunate making. The debt outweighs the equity built. The infrastructure of morality, decency, kindness and common sense has all but been eroded to the point of inoperable and unjustified existence. The ill designs of men have turned markedly adrift and astray from the altruisms and protestations of our forefathers.

Yet, we have seen this all before in various incarnations throughout history (going back most logically to the Roman Empire.) That a society reaches a point where to go forward it must throw off the shackles of injustice and inequality.

We should remember most vividly our Declaration of Independence.

In 1775, as colonial America would begin their fight for independence at Lexington and Concord, we felt these truths are self-evident: that all men were created equal; that all men deserved life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed; that when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design that reduces us to absolute Despotism, it is our right, our duty, to throw off such government and provide new guards for our security.

Poetic our forefathers were.

Evincing a design of a new America is one that will require many, many millions to participate. To accomplish this feat of revamping our lives and securing our futures requires such sacrifice that has not been seen in several generations. This bold concept, using the innovative spirit of America, has to take hold sooner, not later. Time is not on our side.

We have to be the Americans of ideals and dreams, of sweat and blood, of clear vision and utter determination. We the people must take back the reins of destiny of this country. We must mold our future in the widening prospects seen in 1776, but leave behind constraints in ideas, justice and circumstances foisted in that time. We are a different world, for sure; but we are much the same, in operation.

But from the best ideas and hard work, we can be all that our forefathers hoped for in their writings.

We can be independent, secure, stable and fair-minded. We can lead a world that needs leadership in these dangerous and volatile times. We can provide the direction that is so often missing. And be the steadfast steward to the living concept that was founded on July 4, 1776 in the Declaration of Independence and enforced in the United States Constitution.

From those measures and methods, our enduring play and love of sport can continue to be a happy by-product of equal prosperity and unwavering social justice.

Happy 4^th!