The facts are grim. With or without John Boehner's phony suntan or Barack Obama's phony empathy, the reality is that each year four million young people become 21 years of age, with only about three million seniors moving out of the workforce. At least 10 million people are already unemployed or underemployed, and about one million people a year are added to that number just by population growth. Job growth? We are currently losing jobs at the rate of about four million a year. Conclusion: Either some drastic action needs to be taken or we will soon go down the tubes.
The White House and Congress and the federal bankers, under the wings of the private bankers, industrialists, and big money families, apparently believe the only solution is pump-priming the financial sector with the hope that money will flow more freely to bring back good times. It may work and it may not work, and if it doesn't work you can kiss the happiness of your children and grandchildren goodbye.
But is pump-priming the financial sector really the only solution? Is there a better way to use a trillion dollars to get the economy moving again? There is indeed another solution, hardly discussed publicly, almost prohibited because it's politically explosive: Expand government.
Horrors! A bigger government? Well, the reality is that no one has yet demonstrated by example or rhetoric that it's possible to run a country of 320 million people with a small government, and you can guess that anyone who says it's possible is either dreaming or flying a right-wing propaganda kite. There is no inherent evil in big government -- and sometimes, like now, it may be necessary.
It was certainly necessary in the 1930s, and it reduced the misery of millions of people. Oklahoma is now a conservative state, but in the 1930s, when the Okies streamed out of Oklahama to find survival in California, Oklahomans wanted as much big government as possible.
The most reasonable way to get people back to work fast in this country today is to immediately (and temporarily) expand the federal government:
* Retake control of the Post Office and immediately begin mail deliveries twice a day and seven days a week. Result: Approximately one million new jobs.
* Begin a Federal Teachers Agency that hires school teachers, puts them on a federal payroll and distributes them as needed wherever they are requested by local school boards. Result: Approximately one million new jobs.
* Begin a Federal Craftsmen Agency that hires machinists, carpenters, and other skilled workers, puts them on a federal payroll and distributes them to small businesses that request them. Result: Approximately one million new jobs.
* Begin a Federal Information and Communications Specialists Agency that hires information and communications people, puts them on a federal payroll and distributes them to the information and communications industry (especially new startups) on request. Result: Approximately one million new jobs.
* Begin a Federal Construction Workers Agency that hires unskilled construction workers, road builders, bridge builders, tunnel builders, dam builders, puts them on a federal payroll and distributes them to the fifty states as requested. Result: Approximately three million new jobs.
* Begin a Federal Arts Agency that hires actors, artists, and writers, puts them on a federal payroll and distributes them to small-business commercial media on request. Result: Approximately one million new jobs.
* Begin a Federal Managers Agency that hires experienced office managers, puts them on a federal payroll and distributes them to medium and small businesses on request. Result: Approximately two million new jobs.
With a few more such federal agencies, we can reemploy the unemployed and underemployed and get the country moving again.
Can we afford it? Well, the reality is that providing 10 million new jobs at an average salary of $50,000 a year will cost the federal government only $500 billion a year -- much less than what Ben Bernanke thinks he needs to give the banks in a gamble that may not work. Instead of giving the money to banks, why not use the money to employ people?
Creating real jobs immediately will work. Once serious growth begins again, the Federal agencies can always be closed down.
Expanding government seems like a wild "socialist" scheme, but don't let the screaming on the right fool you. It worked in the 1930s, did not kill America, and it will work again.
Is this really "socialism"? Our current workforce is approximately 160 million people. If only 10 percent of our workforce is on the federal payroll, so what? Will Jehovah point his finger at us and lightening strike? Is it better for millions of people to stand in line at soup kitchens or better for them to have real jobs and real money to support themselves and their families?
Of course, if you're wearing $500 shoes you don't give a damn as long as your taxes are low. Feel safe, buddy. You will certainly benefit both materially and spiritually if other people have jobs.
If the wealthiest 2% continue to grow their wealth, and middle class wages continue to stagnate, the GOP is in big trouble in 2012.
Obama and the democrats were only allowed 22 months to fix the mess left by the Bush administration and a congress controlled for 12 years by the GOP. Cutting programs and benefits for the middle class and poor is a plan that will see 2012 as a reversal of 2010.
This massive takeover of private enterprise will "ONLY" cost a mere $500 billion a year!
Which will come from us, the tax payers.
The cheaper idea is no more bailouts for anyone and certainly NO MORE GOVERNMENT JOBS!
By the way, FDRs big ideas in the 1930's did not "work" as you and people who think like you believe.
In 1938 there was a massive takeover by Republicans who started dismantling the New Deal AND WWII put MILLIONS of young, unemployed men and women to work...
Which saved our country from being destroyed but left us flat broke at the end of the war... And 400 thousand of our best and brightest dead.
Those plans didn't work then and they won't work now.
FDR made the depression worse.
We were broke after WWII. BROKE.
No bank in the world would loan us another cent.
400 thousand of our best dead.
We got out by the skin of our teeth and barely saved ourselves. Case in point, the Battle of Midway.
I think we had to be involved in WWII but it was by no means "good" for us.
And it most certainly did not end the depression.
Ending the policies of FDR did.
And that started in 1938... With the Republican take over of the government.
Plain and simple...
To change our motivation from for-financial profit to a for-LIFE approach is the solution to our problems. The question is, do we have the will it takes to promote such a change? It's still an open question.
"What has taken place over the last generation is a highly complicated merger of crime and policy, of stealing and government. Far from taking care of the rest of us, the financial leaders of America and their political servants have seemingly reached the cynical conclusion that our society is not worth saving and have taken on a new mission that involves not creating wealth for us all, but simply absconding with whatever wealth remains in our hollowed out economy."
From "Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America" by Matt Taibbi.
No nation can afford to waste so much human capital. (people)
Too bad it took a Brain Surgeon to figure out the obvious!
1. Any borrower whose home is underwater should be able to modify their loan to a 30 year, competitive interest rate based on current appraised value. If they sell within the next ten years, borrower and lender share any appreciation 50/50 up to the amount of the old loan's principal balance.
2. HAMP should be made mandatory and given a deadline of no more than 30 days for borrower approval.
3. Judges in individual bankruptcy cases based on unemployment, death of a spouse or health care issues should be able to cram down the mortgage principal of a primary residence. Such bankruptcies should not stay on the individuals' credit reports longer than three years after dismissal.
4. Credit card or unsecured debtors should be able to cancel any card with the interest on the balance reduced to the lowest competitive interest rate.
5. Emphasis should be placed on re-patriating jobs which have been sent overseas. Obama should immediately appoint a non-partisan commission made up of representatives of businesses which have offshored jobs, those which haven't, and government. This commission should issue a report within 6 months with concrete proposals for bringing jobs home.
Regarding the bank bailouts - I'm confused as to why we pander to them. Banking is a direct service industry, properly regulated they couldn''t take their business overseas anymore than Starbucks could serve americans coffee from India.