Business is far from usual in America or around the world as the COVID-19 pandemic decimates industry after industry. Sales of new cars in China last month were off 79%. US auto sales could slip from 17 million to less than 10 million this year. The global economy has been ripped apart and the question on everyone’s lips is, “What’s next?”
The coronavirus has brought commerce to a halt. Some economists estimate US GDP could drop 50% by the end of 2020. In the past 2 weeks, almost 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits. The economy is in free fall. People can’t pay their bills and nobody is buying anything except the essentials of life — food and toilet paper.
The oil industry is in tumult. Demand for oil has plummeted just as Russia and Saudi Arabia have chosen to open their spigots and flood the world with oil. Some US oil producers are paying people to take their oil. The first bankruptcy of a fracking company was announced yesterday.
It’s fair to say we are at an inflection point. The question now is, how to restart the economy and put all those people back to work? Here is a modest proposal.
Uh-oh. I know about Modest Proposals.
Wouldn’t this be an excellent time to push the transition to renewable energy and electric transportation or roll out a modest carbon tax, one that puts money back in people’s pockets? And how about retraining programs for those who are out of work so they can find employment in the jobs of the future rather than the occupations of the past?
In other words, why not use the devastation created by the coronavirus as a springboard to implement the Green New Deal? Of course, that would require leadership, something America seems to be incapable of at the moment.
Oh, that kind of bold, far-seeing modest proposal. Works for me.
Here is my modest proposal. Elect More and Better Democrats this November, and take up the hundreds of Progressive bills that got through the House in this session, only to be buried by Grim Reaper "Moscow" Mitch McConnell. Starting with comprehensive voting reform, so the Rs can't cheat their way in again.
And yes a Carbon Tax, and all sorts of Green incentives. Not just EVs, but trees, and buildings, and immigration reform, and sustainable agriculture, and health, and turning strip mines and removed mountaintops into solar and wind farms, and a comprehensive rebuilding of the grid, and, um, well, you know, all of that. I've been banging on about it here for years, along with many others.