Here are just a few things the Federal Reserve, Congress, and the Bush (or next) administration could do to help this nation recover from the current recession - or prevent a larger depression - but are nearly 100% not likely to do:
- require that each Member of Congress, under Penalty of Perjury, certify that he or she has read every word in every bill before voting on that piece of legislation
- remove U.S. troops from every foreign country - we are a republic, not an empire
- all future laws passed by Congress must have a sunset provision and be voted on again every 4 years
- stop rescuing financial institutions that are about to fail just because they are large
- stop the presses - the dollar has lost 96% of it’s value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913
- no deficit financing of government expenditures
- have a group of researchers whose job is to ferret out unnecessary regulations and to recommend them for quick decertification and repeal of the underlying statutes
- every government job (non-appointee) that becomes vacant due to retirement or resignation must be kept vacant for 6 months to see if the position can just be eliminated
This is just a start. More tomorrow.
High gas prices will cause some interesting results:
- more people will shop for bargains online, rather than traveling from store to store
- delivery charges will be reasonable compared to picking it up yourself
- home gardening and locally grown food will enjoy a resurgence
- people will think twice about drives to the beach or to the lake
- going for a Sunday drive is a sign of wealth
- if your neighbor fills up his SUV at one visit to the pump, he is probably doing better than you are
- you may see some unlikely people - bankers, lawyers, doctors - use the gas crunch to justify commuting by motorcycle
- some smart commuters will get their exercise by commuting by bicycle
- people will need second jobs to stay afloat - most will create new businesses online to earn extra income
- small restaurants will suffer first as more workers shift lunch money to gas tanks
- fast food places will suffer next as prices of oil run up food prices
- over the next few years, temporary dips in oil prices will not be long-lived enough to let Americans drive huge cars and trucks again - SUVs will be like Cadillacs with fins
- supply increases will be sopped up by China and India
- alternative sources of energy will be great businesses but will not dethrone big oil
- Florida will be unhappy when offshore oil wells appear near their coastline in the Gulf of Mexico
- placement of refineries will be hot political topics and push abortion and gay marriage off the table
- politicians, as usual, will screw things up then demand more tax revenue to fix the problems they created in the first place
Just a few of the issues I believe will dominate the economic and political landscape over the next 10 years. With any luck, it will bring back some of the lean, mean, fighting spirit of the American people - but only if the politicians are pushed out of the way.
—
Charles Lamm is a junkyard philosopher whose blogs include Live Free in an Unfree World, the Asset Protection Iron Triangle, and Virtual Joe Friday.
Back in the 1930s, in the legendary days of the formerly rich falling from the New York City sky, cash not only ruled - cash was the superdelegate of its day.
Houses in some of the tougher neighborhoods in Atlanta are going for under 10 cents on the dollar. And still no buyers.
Wait until the market “really” gets bad.
Anyone who can put together even a modest nest egg can skyrocket their way to wealth in the next few years. Investors who stayed out of or left the stock market in early 1929 - the cash rich - made out the same way.
Keep cash (in Euros?), gold, and junk silver for now. Buy houses when there is blood in the streets.
Charles Lamm is promoting asset protection for the masses on his site at www.corp-llc-bct.com .
RSS Feed
