It certainly isn't the practitioners of the free market reaganomic's theory of capitalism that are trying to hang on to what drove this country down, and still is.
In short, ronnynomics was supposed to do what we've been trying to do the past couple of years, use capital to invest in growth, the 'stimulus' recovery funds and fixing, maintaining the existing infrastructure so as not to have even higher costs when it collapses and needs total rebuilding.
The wealth to the top, according to the con, was supposed to be readily invested for continuing growth and a healthy and expanding economy.
Well we've seen how well that worked out and continues to not.
I'm 62, the first half, roughly, of my life was in the post WWII era that had not only continued growth but we were envied by all other countries on this planet. The jokes were constant on products placed on our shelves that were cheap and cheaply made, the old Soviet Union used to claim invention of things we not only developed but were already perfecting, through our envied workforce and innovations from. They would produce knockoffs that were cheaply made and looked that way.
The second part of my work life, roughly, was anything but the first part. Wages and benefits, if any, started stagnating. Working in construction, both residential and commercial, let me tell ya that those rapidly rising real estate prices, new homes, commercial building costs, etc., had nothing to do with wages, the always way to blame for rising costs. We even lost what once was considered the blue collar professions and became skilled labor or just labor.
Now I sit in early retirement, which I never planned on doing at all or at least not until the body and mind just gave out or I had an accident that prevented me from working. I'm not the only one but luckily, even though I'm losing a couple of hundred a month, I can at least collect off all them taxes paid for all that hard work I did for over some forty years, while benefiting from what they gave to everyone either daily or as needed, not just that which disappeared in the non lock box of social security, so I can exist and hopefully not become homeless etc..
Let me tell you youngsters what you're looking at. What's happening now is only going to rapidly expand, it started back in the past thirty years and grew in the past decade. Don't think of yourselves as experienced and gaining experience in anything you do, they're booting out the old and locking them from further good wage earnings and even employment, no matter what they bring to the employer and their future growth. Quality and experience are going away just like the many trades and the innovative work force we already exported over these past decades.
I caught this earlier. Anybody who actually went into the higher education industry to actually get educated and did so might want to look at this and the other attempts at building a new economy. An economy that should already have been well underway as we had once started down that road, to develop new energy sources as well as clean up our air, waters and land, but allowed the few to put the brakes on that forward movement and that was before 'climate change' really became the needed end goal.
Commerce Department Launches i6 Green Challenge
The federal government will award up to $1 million to each of six teams with the most innovative ideas to drive technology commercialization and entrepreneurship for a green economy â as long as Congress appropriates the funding in the 2011 budget.
Mar 15, 2011 - The U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration (EDA) and its Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship on March 10 announced the opening of its $12 million i6 Green Challenge in partnership with the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. âª
EDA will award up to $1 million to each of six teams around the country with the most innovative ideas to drive technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in support of a green innovation economy, increased U.S. competitiveness and new jobs. Its partner agencies will award more than $6 million in additional funding to i6 Green winners.
Initiatives like the i6 Green Challenge support the President's vision for out-innovating the rest of the world by moving great ideas from the lab to the marketplace to spur the development of 21st century jobs and industries, said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. We know that in the last 30 years, nearly all net new jobs were created by startups, and they will continue to play a critical role in our nation's economic prosperity.â {continued}
U.S. Economic Development Administration website with much more information as well as needed forms.
Guess who's gonna stop this dead in it's tracks as we continue to rapidly fall behind pretty much everyone else on this planet.
As an example:
Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover
Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal's dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects â primarily harnessing the country's wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves.
Today, Lisbon's trendy bars, Porto's factories and the Algarve's glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal's grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago.
Land-based wind power this year deemed potentially competitive with fossil fuels by the International Energy Agency in Paris has expanded sevenfold in that time. And Portugal expects in 2011 to become the first country to inaugurate a national network of charging stations for electric cars.
I've seen all the smiles you know: It's a good dream. It can't compete. It's too expensive, said Prime Minister José Sócrates, recalling the way Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, mockingly offered to build him an electric Ferrari. Mr. Sócrates added, The experience of Portugal shows that it is possible to make these changes in a very short time.â {continued}