I don't know why we'd want to spend money fighting global warming when we're on the brink of a 100,000 year ice age.
The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
Al Gore needs to make a sequel with the new information.
Posted by Phil at January 11, 2009 01:52 PMWe are involved in two big wars, one of which is a complete waste of time and money. In the process of Bush’s pugilism period, our National Guard has been depleted and abused. My proposal is to use our armed forces as a National Service Program. We have a National Guard and Army that is trained, equipped, and disciplined. Those kids need jobs, as do many others. The Plan involves using our wartime machine just like we used the CCC and WPA for domestic projects. It’s already equipped and structured. It would allow our returning soldiers to have work, and play an important part in rebuilding America. It would make the National Service Program heroic and give our military young something to be proud of after their largely wasted efforts in Iraq. And in the process, it would allow us to reconstitute the National Guard that Bush decimated by cannibalizing it to fight his absolutely stupid war. It’s a win-win idea. Why bring soldiers home to dump onto a collapsing job market. Why not give them the chance to come home and work for the country in a new way, using their training and discipline effectively instead of walking the streets looking for any work they can find, feeling forgotten.
Since they're trained, structured, and equipped, they could do lots of projects that it would take forever to get organized otherwise - things like wind farms, TVA elsewhere, refurbish and extend WPA buildings, lay new cable, etc. Likewise, they would be good supervisors for civilian workers...
Posted by Mickey Nardo at January 11, 2009 02:06 PMPhil, using Pravda to buttress your argument doesn't give you much credibility. Do try again.
Posted by Mary at January 11, 2009 02:24 PMOne way to do a massive stimulus would be to pass Feed-In Law legislation for renewable electricity generation (see http://www.wind-works.org for descriptions of what they are and how they work). These will make renewable electricity profitable, without tax subsidies or the need for mediocre quotas.
The next problem would get getting credit for these developments. And if private banks don't or won't do this, screw - 'em, money should be loaned directly from the Federal government for suitable projects. Since we need about $2.5 to $3 trillion to replace our current obsolete fleet of nukes, coal burners and gas burners, this will be a good step in that direction. The $2.5 trillion investment in the next 10 years would have a multiplier effect of 4 to 6, so this would have about 12.5 to $15 trillion worth of stimulus.
And all this with minimal government expenditures.
Food for thought.
Posted by Dave B at January 11, 2009 03:21 PMI like Dave B's proposal. Somewhere this morning, it may have been TLC, some conservative yammerheads were ridiculing infrastructure projects that just built things, and championing programs that would make the next, "Microsoft, Google or Yahoo."
Fascinating, innit? The conservative mindset in a little rotting sushi roll.
Posted by idiosynchronic at January 11, 2009 04:37 PMWe need to start building non-subsidized affordable housing - talk about something that could fire up the economy. Build small, inexpensive homes but well thought-out homes, that even people earning minimum wage can afford to buy and you'll see a real swing in the economy.
Posted by at January 11, 2009 05:16 PMSpending money to put people to work on projects that have possitive long term impacts on the economy.
1) Elimate traffic bottlenecks. The free flow of traffic eases the flow of commerce, saves energy, and improves business productivity which leads to more jobs.
2) Build public transit systems in congested cities like Los Angeles. This will open more areas up to higher density development, save energy, increase employment.
3) Build publicly owned and operated nuclear power plants. Will produce lots of good paying jobs during all phases: planning, construction and operation. Will produce low cost electricity with zero emissions to run electric cars that will replace gasoline engines in the future.
4) Build high speed passenger rail lines that crisscross the nation. During construction this will provide thousands of good paying jobs in high tech steel and manufacturing industries.
5) Build federal prisons on military bases. Allow the states to use federal facilities to ease overcrowding in state prisons. Fewer early releases will keep crime rates down. Lower crime rates leads to increased economic activity which leads to increased private sector jobs.
Posted by ken at January 12, 2009 04:16 PMI'd start by having the Federal Government pay the states for their unemployment costs, since it is in large part because of the failure policies of Bush that we are in this position. That's not exactly a stimulus, except that it would help states like CALIFORNIA not cut State Jobs and Services, which, thanks to the fascist CA gopper scum, we're being forced to do. And of course if the state cuts jobs and services, that puts more pressure on the cities and counties due to lost state funds and added state burdens.
Then I'd start building solar arrays that can be added to residential and commercial properties, and that can feed back into the electrical grid, and screw the utilities if they don't like distributed power. Just start building them, and passing them out, employ the unemployed, the underemployed, and the under pressure companies and get busy making stuff.
Every home should have a solar array, even if it isn't big enough to power the whole home's energy needs, it doesn't need to be perfect after all. Build them like they built the Liberty Ships.
And put the unemployed home builders to work building passive heating and cooling amendments to existing structures while they wait for the housing business to come back.
And rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and do it right, re-work the levee system and the Mississippi River controls to restore natural flows that will rebuild the barrier islands in the Gulf and reduce the damage from storm surges. That would also help the fisheries, absorb some CO2, and mitigate some of the pollution from the ports and oil platforms.
That's all for now.
Posted by Duckman GR at January 12, 2009 10:28 PM