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Four moves to rebuild the U.S. economy

March 4th, 2008 · 311 Comments

It’s natural for an economy to ebb and flow. But this time, it’s not going to break out under its own inertia as it did in the 1990s. If the economy is going to emerge healthy we need to start making moves to solve the problems that got us here in the first place.

1. Rebuild industrial infrastructure – some industries are gone, and we’re not going to get them back from Asia and Europe, but there are new industries that we can take now and it will be national suicide if we don’t hold onto them with an iron grip. (Amorphous thin films, ultracapacitors, polar dynamos, desalination, Peltier devices, piezo plastics, spherical combustion.)

2. Rebuild communications infrastructure – But do it right this time, the Eisenhower era is gone, and mixed-use roads no longer work. We need new ultralight roads for ultralight vehicles, initially taken as 80% from existing roadways, with the legacy roads relegated to existing technology, then gradually converted over to rail/ultralight. This process will pay for itself due to the lower cost of road construction and maintenance. We can no longer allow the oil industry to dictate the design of our roads.

3. Decentralize U.S. agriculture – This will not raise the cost of agriproducts, but rather change the types of foods we eat to drought tolerant grains, soil-mending plants and low-irrigation foods. The days of selling heavily subsidized water to growers in arid climates needs to end. Agribiz subsidies has taken the competitive edge away from our food industries.

4. Stop accumulating national debt – start paying it off.

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