Let's start with Greece. Greece is deeply in debt due in no small part to high investment in Greece when times were good. The investment brought jobs, higher real estate prices, higher incomes, etc. Interest rates were low and there were no problems. Then the US/world suffered a sub-prime mortgage crises linked to nonsensical (some people say complex financial instruments) derivatives. Boom, interest rates on loans skyrocketed, people were unemployed, and Greeks were made to suffer.
So what is the solution, impose higher unemployment on Greeks and cut wages on Greeks, as if those two actions will enable Greece to pay back loans. Guess what folks one has to be just plain dumb to think that by reducing a country's tax base will enable a country to raise more money. So why do this? No reason than complete and utter stupidity. The solution is actually simple, lower interest rates, loan more money, direct the money to producing goods that can be exported and bring wealth into Greece. If the rich European nations would think of providing a Marshal Plan for the poorer European nations the problem would be solved overnight.
Next consider stocks. The stock market suffered huge losses today. Why? The answer is simple, fear. Fear that we will somehow get caught up in a European debt crisis that first manifested itself in Greece, but in reality is a problem all of Europe is facing due to over investment in bubbles - in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Ireland, . . . The solution is again simple. The federal government should offer to join with the strong European Nations to provide low interest loans to Greece and other weak European nations to increase production of hard goods that can be exported. Fear will disappear. The stock market will bounce back. More importantly there will be more investment in US companies.
Next consider energy. Energy is a huge problem. The world needs and wants more energy and is willing to pay the price for carbon based energy. How sad since CO2 will get us in the end. And then there are the short term problems, death, ecological disaster, loss of jobs, . . . The start of the solution is a high carbon tax. The tax should be on the use of carbon to produce CO2. It doesn't matter whether the carbon comes from coal, oil, gas, . . . The tax should be on the order of 40% of the cost of the carbon.
The second solution is strong regulations. We hear about these ultra high technology unmanned submarines being used to help understand and plug the leaks in the gulf oil platform fuck up. Seems to me that one could use similar technology to dig coal. Regulations should prohibit use of workers in knowingly unsafe situations.
This brings me to the third solution - impose high costs on companies for their mistakes. There should be no liability limits and heavy fines for their mistakes. Massey should be fined on the order of at least a hundred million dollars for their mine disaster and be forced to pay the killed workers at least a million dollars each. And the owner should be prosecuted criminally for his actions. BP should pay all clean up costs, end of discussion. BP should also pay at least a billion dollars in fines to the federal government. BP should also provide income for 50 years to the people whose careers were ruined due to their fuck up. The executives of BP, Haliburtin, and whatever other companies were involved should face criminal prosecution.
The fourth solution is to bring these changes to all countries in the world do that such disasters are eliminated.
Let's talk about unemployment. The US has a whole lot of work to do and high unemployment. Seems like a contradiction to me. There are many fixes that need to occur. Right now financial reform is necessary. During the Great Depression, my grandfather was placed in a asylum because he thought the banks should lend him money so he could make cabinets. He went to the bank everyday asking for money. The bankers got fed up and had him committed. Yet, lending money to produce goods is exactly what the banks should have been doing. The same is true today. Derivatives should be banned. Banks should be broken into smaller units and highly regulated. The reform should insist that money primarily be lent either to produce goods and services or to purchase goods and services.
Another fix is education. Teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing despite the stimulus package providing a 100 billion dollars for education. The states, counties, and cities just do not have the money to improve education. If the result is an even more poorly educated workforce we can forget about jobs in the future. We need to invest on the order of 250 billion dollars a year for the next 3 years just to get education back on track and on the order of 500 billion dollars a year over the same time period to improve education. Okay, I don't know the numbers, but I do know that the numbers are huge, or 100 billion here a 100 billion there and soon we are talking about serious money.
Another fix is in infrastructure funding. Boil the water in Boston. Water main breaks in one of the richest counties in America (I know I live there). Bridges falling down. Public buildings in disrepair. Potholes and traffic jams everywhere. Inadequate train service be the trains subways, passenger trains, or freight trains. Bill Maher asked "Where did the money go?" with reference to lack of stimulus funds to use for building high speed rail. Yeah, 785 billion dollars sounds like a whole lot of money, but given the needs of education (100 billion spent there), unemployment insurance (more billions) and then those stupid tax cuts, it really was not that much money. Huge sums (hundreds of billions of dollars)of money need to spent on infrastructure.
Another fix lies in research and development. Few appreciate that today's technology came from research and development largely funded by the federal government or through regulatory rules. This wonderful beast called the Internet was created with government funding. The transistor was created due to regulations on AT&T. Basically to get more income from users AT&T invested heavily in Bell Laboratories, the creator of the transistor, which AT&T gave away in the 1956 consent decree. And then there is this little (sarcasm mode) language C++ developed at Bell Laboratories. (I used it when it was called C with classes) Computer Science was largely funded through the DoD. Little things like VLSI were also funded there was operating system development (but most of you never heard of Tenex). Research and development need to be funded in the energy industry, the computing industry, the education industry, nanotechnology . . . This should be done through a number of means including direct federal funding, tax subsidies and regulation.
Let's move on to war. The troops need to be brought home from both Iran and Afghanistan - End of Discussion. The US needs to change focus from beating the shit out of countries to mass economic development and education that will change countries. Only through change brought about by high education and high living standards can war be eliminated and terrorism reduced. Yeah there will always be some real nut cases out there, some Timothy McVeighs, but providing everyone with a great education focusing not just on technology, but also on making positive contributions to society and providing all with a high standard of living we can greatly reduce terrorism. People will fail to have any sympathy for terrorism and stop terrorists in their tracks. Again trillions need to be spent, but if this made a world wide effort by the rich countries to change the rest of the world the money will be well spent. Better yet world productivity will increase dramatically and the money recovered many times over.
Well that's it folks.
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