As the descending economic spiral continues, and the attempt to throw a pig at the problem leaves us really porked, ... before every American is summarily dismissed from work, disappears from the bankrupt jobless rolls and America becomes a semi-worthless vacation colony of Dubai ... I thought it was probably about time that we put what's left of our heads together and really solve this problem.
My personal solution involves translating the psyches of NBA teams into a mathematical presentation that reveals a model for choosing the winning play roughly 84% of the time over approximately 210 plays/season, a 17% improvement over the very rarely achieved top average of 67% annually over just 90 plays/season, thus allowing the bettor to bet 50% of his bankroll on every play until his bankroll extends to the stars, give these plays to every American, and let them suck all the off-shore dollars back into America, halting mortgage defaults, reducing unemployment insurance drain, restoring tax coffers, providing investment capital, ... and we're back in business.
However, all fantasy aside ...
... Let's first get a grip on the reality of the present problem.
Over-inflated stock and debt securities came due and their hollow nature collapsed upon presentation. Arguably self-sabotaged lenders reacted anally. People lost billions ... including those who employ millions and who thus began responding with layoffs in quantum waves. The more consumers with thereby less dollars to spend cost corporations their projected sales ... resulting in more layoffs ... resulting in more lost sales ... resulting in more layoffs ... ... .
So before its deja vu buddy can you spare a dime time all over again, how do we halt this deadly spiral and start things back on an upward trend?
Some say we shouldn't allow ARMs and futures speculation. Well, okay, but maybe next time, as what's done is done, and we can't just wish this foundational aspect of our present problem away.
We need to find a way to put money into consumers' pockets and in sufficient quantities that consumers will spend an adequate percentage of it on ... ... well, more on that later.
The first question is how to get that money into consumers' pockets.
Did someone say "jobs"?
Okay, let's go there, I mean, why not, it seems rational ... though with jobs disappearing faster than jobs in a pending American depression, what rich fairy's magic wand is powerful enough to poof us some new ones?
Which brings us to the FDR method, pork optional, presently being experimented in Washington.
Some say that saved us seventy years ago ... others say it merely slowed the system from recovering ... some say it prevented worse carnage ... others say it extended the number of sufferers ... ... . Regardless, we worked our equal-gender asses off during the WWII forties, which probably had a lot to do with the comfortable fifties ... until we boomed our population over an economically manageable level ... ... but regardless, the jury may perhaps be out on the FDR model, sans trichinosis, though that model includes a 90% upper-echelon tax bracket the Gates and Buffets of today may find a bit unappealing.
Then there's those Gates and Buffets themselves -- private investors who would be called upon to voluntarily give freely of their riches to start new ventures that would re-train old American dogs and employ them once again. But, of course, if it's optional ... and their heads are somewhere in Africa ... ... .
So how are we to create jobs without the money to create them?
And what products and services would these jobs provide?
Other than creating new jobs -- I mean jobs that pay a living wage, not CCC type communal crap -- jobs that appear to be a declining species in this Neanderthal economic system, how do we get money into American pockets?
Well, some say we have plenty of jobs already (What???) Yeah, there's plenty of jobs, we just aren't employing the right people. (How's that again?)
Well, look ... where have all our manufacturing jobs gone? (Duh ... ) China, that's right, among others. All these American manufacturing jobs that could pay a living wage have just disappeared. And what about our computer programmers? (India, The Philippines, Santiago Chile?) You're catching on. Accountants, corporate customer service, etc. etc. -- all gone. And we import so much finished goods any more, where once at best we imported the raw materials and self-sufficiently built our own stuff.
And if off-shoring and out-sourcing aren't bad enough, the in-sourcing is really killing us: importing of cheap foreign labor to America is costing us greater than most are aware. Pretty soon foreign nationals working in America will be the majority!
And why do we suffer this American job-drain? Because it's good for corporations, and what's good for corporations is good for America, right? Well, perhaps ... if you don't mind American individuals themselves nobly disappearing painfully like a brontosaurus in a meteor storm.
And just why the heck do we allow countries like Saudi Arabia to buy our stocks?! Do we really want them owning that big a chunk of our precious CEOs? I shudder to think ... .
Indeed, some say the solution requires some drastic nationalistic overtones with a background chorus of economic socialism.
Maybe. After all, it's worked before ... though the trick would be to this time avoid the holocaustic sacrificing of the attendant "evil devils".
But are there any other solutions that don't involve foreign national deportation, returning manufacturing et al to our soil, government buy-up of foreign-owned stock, and other isolationist behaviors necessary to lick our wounds for the time being before those wounds become fatal?
Again, whatever the solution, the bottom line is the individual American: the individual American's suffering must be abated before too many fall off the edge of Maslow's Hierarchy of Need. If the individual American citizen can become a living wage earner again, and soon, a devastating perhaps country-ending depression may be averted.
How do we do that?
That's my question.
Got answers?
Our very lives may depend on us.
My personal solution involves translating the psyches of NBA teams into a mathematical presentation that reveals a model for choosing the winning play roughly 84% of the time over approximately 210 plays/season, a 17% improvement over the very rarely achieved top average of 67% annually over just 90 plays/season, thus allowing the bettor to bet 50% of his bankroll on every play until his bankroll extends to the stars, give these plays to every American, and let them suck all the off-shore dollars back into America, halting mortgage defaults, reducing unemployment insurance drain, restoring tax coffers, providing investment capital, ... and we're back in business.
However, all fantasy aside ...
... Let's first get a grip on the reality of the present problem.
Over-inflated stock and debt securities came due and their hollow nature collapsed upon presentation. Arguably self-sabotaged lenders reacted anally. People lost billions ... including those who employ millions and who thus began responding with layoffs in quantum waves. The more consumers with thereby less dollars to spend cost corporations their projected sales ... resulting in more layoffs ... resulting in more lost sales ... resulting in more layoffs ... ... .
So before its deja vu buddy can you spare a dime time all over again, how do we halt this deadly spiral and start things back on an upward trend?
Some say we shouldn't allow ARMs and futures speculation. Well, okay, but maybe next time, as what's done is done, and we can't just wish this foundational aspect of our present problem away.
We need to find a way to put money into consumers' pockets and in sufficient quantities that consumers will spend an adequate percentage of it on ... ... well, more on that later.
The first question is how to get that money into consumers' pockets.
Did someone say "jobs"?
Okay, let's go there, I mean, why not, it seems rational ... though with jobs disappearing faster than jobs in a pending American depression, what rich fairy's magic wand is powerful enough to poof us some new ones?
Which brings us to the FDR method, pork optional, presently being experimented in Washington.
Some say that saved us seventy years ago ... others say it merely slowed the system from recovering ... some say it prevented worse carnage ... others say it extended the number of sufferers ... ... . Regardless, we worked our equal-gender asses off during the WWII forties, which probably had a lot to do with the comfortable fifties ... until we boomed our population over an economically manageable level ... ... but regardless, the jury may perhaps be out on the FDR model, sans trichinosis, though that model includes a 90% upper-echelon tax bracket the Gates and Buffets of today may find a bit unappealing.
Then there's those Gates and Buffets themselves -- private investors who would be called upon to voluntarily give freely of their riches to start new ventures that would re-train old American dogs and employ them once again. But, of course, if it's optional ... and their heads are somewhere in Africa ... ... .
So how are we to create jobs without the money to create them?
And what products and services would these jobs provide?
Other than creating new jobs -- I mean jobs that pay a living wage, not CCC type communal crap -- jobs that appear to be a declining species in this Neanderthal economic system, how do we get money into American pockets?
Well, some say we have plenty of jobs already (What???) Yeah, there's plenty of jobs, we just aren't employing the right people. (How's that again?)
Well, look ... where have all our manufacturing jobs gone? (Duh ... ) China, that's right, among others. All these American manufacturing jobs that could pay a living wage have just disappeared. And what about our computer programmers? (India, The Philippines, Santiago Chile?) You're catching on. Accountants, corporate customer service, etc. etc. -- all gone. And we import so much finished goods any more, where once at best we imported the raw materials and self-sufficiently built our own stuff.
And if off-shoring and out-sourcing aren't bad enough, the in-sourcing is really killing us: importing of cheap foreign labor to America is costing us greater than most are aware. Pretty soon foreign nationals working in America will be the majority!
And why do we suffer this American job-drain? Because it's good for corporations, and what's good for corporations is good for America, right? Well, perhaps ... if you don't mind American individuals themselves nobly disappearing painfully like a brontosaurus in a meteor storm.
And just why the heck do we allow countries like Saudi Arabia to buy our stocks?! Do we really want them owning that big a chunk of our precious CEOs? I shudder to think ... .
Indeed, some say the solution requires some drastic nationalistic overtones with a background chorus of economic socialism.
Maybe. After all, it's worked before ... though the trick would be to this time avoid the holocaustic sacrificing of the attendant "evil devils".
But are there any other solutions that don't involve foreign national deportation, returning manufacturing et al to our soil, government buy-up of foreign-owned stock, and other isolationist behaviors necessary to lick our wounds for the time being before those wounds become fatal?
Again, whatever the solution, the bottom line is the individual American: the individual American's suffering must be abated before too many fall off the edge of Maslow's Hierarchy of Need. If the individual American citizen can become a living wage earner again, and soon, a devastating perhaps country-ending depression may be averted.
How do we do that?
That's my question.
Got answers?
Our very lives may depend on us.
