The only answer worse than more government is world government.
Government should regulate business, but could never run it.
The only answer, do more with less. We are, the tablet computer with WiFi, will soon replace all books, music devices, and screen information, at a low price. Soon, all school books, which is going to kill the print industry, publishing, paper making, and a lot of retailing.
It does it all at a lower price using less energy while giving the freedom to use it anywhere. It produces mass unemployment.
Energy consumption is down, waste and pollution in production, disposal of old products, landfill. Education is updated, available to more, cheaper, at the cost of jobs gone forever.
Most of our unemployment is caused by the computer, better machines, which have made the world more productive with less workers.
Costs are lower, use higher. In 1960, a tank of gas cost me $10, @ $0.50 a gallon, in Silver. That was ten ounces, cars got very low mileage, 8-10.
Now I get three times the mileage, in a much safer car, and the same twenty gallons, minus Lead, now costs two ounces of Silver.
In the near future I expect twice current mileage, a still safer vehicle, that like the modern cars, also last longer. 1960 cars lasted three to five years, modern cars three times that.
It works while growing, but we have come to the point where advances cost jobs. We have also saturated the transport market. American and European car companies have to sell to China, South America, they would go out of business without an expanding market.
Cars that get 100 miles per gallon and last twenty years, will killl oil, autos, and highway building. Detroit, and all the Great Lakes have been in manufacturing decline for thirty years. Detroit lost a million people.
Now it is hitting national. We are running better on 15% less workers, unless you are one of them. It is not going to stop.
Doing more with less means smaller homes, lower costs, which kills taxes, building materials, construction work. The McMansion did keep materials and labor working. Small house, big garden, will also hurt the food industry.
What we should do, small efficent homes, self production of food, owning less, and that with a long service life, will kill the economy.
Social Security, Government and Union Pensions, are all Ponzis, based on having more future workers to pay for them, and growing industry to support their investments. 90% of the stock market is Pension Funds. Declining earnings, 2% Bonds, market losses, declining workforce, cuts in government services, lower tax income, it is all falling.
The response a decade ago when this was known, send everyone credit card offers, anyone can get a mortgage, and start a war on terror. Something like War on fuzzy gray shapes seen in the night, with Homeland Security everywhere, with a government paycheck. Bush Bucks, just send out money, cut taxes, and as he is called, "Helicopter Ben," just drop money over cities.
Now no credit, the wars ending, the bailout, across the board cuts in government spending, reduced employment, coming to a defense contractor near you, plus returning troops, with no jobs. The banks are bankrupt, housing will never recover, and Europe was a myth.
This was not caused by Capitalists, this is a government managed economy. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did not create this mess.
If all income was subject to Social Security, and the top tax rate was 60%, we would have no debt, sound retirements, could give everyone food stamps, rent stamps, health care, free education.
That would not solve our structural economic problem, technology replaces workers, and will continue doing so.
The only place we can use that workforce is in Planet Repair. We have run down the soil, logged for building materials and paper, like it was endless. Forests also produce the air we breath, bring the rains, and support a chain of life. Top soil is a rare and valueable thing, ours is depleated.
The system that supports our lives is not government, industry, capitalism, it is dirt, plants, animals, trees, rivers, the oceans. We have plenty of land, we could all live in Texas. The land we have could be much better preserved and improved. We are part of life, and depend on all of life.
It was damaged in one form of gaining wealth, it can be restored in another, Gullies filled, soil restored, organic matter increased, improved nitrogen Cycle, higher Oxygen content, climate buffers for the coming changes.
We have the materials, the water, the surplus labor. It is the best we could do to combat Global Warming, Cooling, sideways, and our fellow living creatures, and the only thing that will leave a better planet for the future. It is the one form of production that will not create a surplus.
Unemployment could reach half as the new normal, it is the only project large enough to use half the people for hundreds of years, and it is shovel ready.
This change we are going through will not last, we will reach a new stability, people will live to fit into the new reality. We need a change buffer, where the next few generations can live through the transformation. We will reach peak population, it will decline, we will live better on less. The only thing we can change is the background, forests, rich grasslands, clean rivers, life everywhere. We can not have more land, but we can make what we have several times more productive.
18 Nov 2011, 8:37 pm
........I'll do my best to find a way to live off the land so that I can actually live, and if that does not work out then who knows.
