Escaping the Global Meltdown

In the mid-70s, the US economy was a mess and even worse, we impeached a president which put the integrity of the country in question for the first time that I can remember. I was a kid then and I rarely listened to a political speech. But, there was one that had a line in it that stayed with me. I didn't remember it word-for-word but thanks to Google, Gerald Ford in 1975 said this:

“I am determined to seek self-sufficiency in energy as an urgent national priority. My goal is to make America independent of foreign energy sources by 1985.”

That statement came to mind while reading about what’s going on in Iraq now and how the cost of a barrel of oil jumped up and Wall Street got all nervous. We are anything but self-efficient these days and so much less so than in the 70’s. What if we had a leader in place today that could make the same declaration? What would it take for us to be truly independent and let the global meltdown happen without taking it with us? I know, it seems unfair to even say that but in the end, it will be every country for themselves.

If I were magically elected president, I would aim to be self-sufficient in more than just energy. I would push for the following:

1. Challenge our country’s best and brightest to come up with ways to remove any dependency on foreign energy. That could be done by really coming up with sustainable alternate energy or by getting more out of the energy we currently produce (or can produce) at home. Oh, and by the way, to the die-hard environmentalists, I'm sorry but the threatened species will have to go it on their own until we're back on our own two feet.

2. Give incentives to American based businesses to bring all manufacturing back on-shore – and I mean ALL of it. These businesses would have to build plants in places with the highest unemployment. Anyone collecting federal or state unemployment benefits would be required to go to work in these plants or lose their benefits. Heads of households on welfare would be required to do the same or lose the benefits. They may not get the exact job they ever wished for but at least they're working and feeding their families. The companies they go to work for would not be required to pay any more than what the benefits amount to. Of course, employees could advance and earn more as they succeed in their new jobs.

3. Take a lesson from China and declare that any foreign company doing business in the US must partner with a privately owned US company (that is, no conglomerates or mega-corporations). The foreign companies must share any intellectual property with the local company.

4. Close the borders. All visitors would require a visa with a limit to the number of days they can stay. The NSA would be reassigned to monitor visiting foreigners (instead of citizens) to ensure that when it’s time to go, they go.

5. The military would be redirected to defend the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Nothing more, nothing less. Troops won’t be dispatched to protect US “interests” abroad since there won’t be any.

6. Scale back the size of the federal government. Get rid of all programs that keep the poor from ever escaping their federal shackles. Give the power back to the states to find programs that will put their poor to work and teach them skills to better themselves and to care for the sick and the elderly.

7. Provide humanitarian aid around the world as needed and affordable but only in the interest of saving lives, not profit.

I’m not defining a utopia nor have I thought through all the consequences. The goal is to restore a society where traditional values such as hard work and personal achievement go hand-in-hand and make us collectively successful. No government nannies. No federal bureaucracies with multitudes of bloated programs. Last, and not least, we would pay off the national debt so that we are once again an independent nation not beholding to another. Once that's achieved, we'll let whichever generation that has inherited it decide how to go forth.

Meanwhile, if other nations want to practice a religion to live like it’s the middle ages, that's their choice and who are we to stop them.

What say you?

You got my vote, and I dont live in the US

Have you heard that those who generate their own power via solar panels must pay a tax? If that doesn't wake people up to whats going on then nothing will!

a reply to: VoidHawk
I didn't know that but I guess I'm not surprised. The powers that be are just so out of touch with reality they don't know what to do to get things back on track.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti

1. Challenge our country’s best and brightest to come up with ways to remove any dependency on foreign energy.

Geothermal. There's more than we'll ever need just below the surface. No need for nasty Fracking.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
2. Give incentives to American based businesses to bring all manufacturing back on-shore – and I mean ALL of it. These businesses would have to build plants in places with the highest unemployment.

Agreed.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
Anyone collecting federal or state unemployment benefits would be required to go to work in these plants or lose their benefits. Heads of households on welfare would be required to do the same or lose the benefits. They may not get the exact job they ever wished for but at least they're working and feeding their families. The companies they go to work for would not be required to pay any more than what the benefits amount to. Of course, employees could advance and earn more as they succeed in their new jobs.

Disagree!!!
Its time for everyone to realise that machines and automation means there will NEVER be enough work. There will always be a percentage of people who want to work, so why not allow them to do the few remaining jobs that require a human. Infact, being allowed to work could be considered a privilege!

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
3. Take a lesson from China and declare that any foreign company doing business in the US must partner with a privately owned US company (that is, no conglomerates or mega-corporations). The foreign companies must share any intellectual property with the local company.

I wouldn't let any of them in!

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
4. Close the borders. All visitors would require a visa with a limit to the number of days they can stay. The NSA would be reassigned to monitor visiting foreigners (instead of citizens) to ensure that when it’s time to go, they go.

Disband the nsa.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
5. The military would be redirected to defend the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Nothing more, nothing less. Troops won’t be dispatched to protect US “interests” abroad since there won’t be any.

Agreed.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
6. Scale back the size of the federal government. Get rid of all programs that keep the poor from ever escaping their federal shackles. Give the power back to the states to find programs that will put their poor to work and teach them skills to better themselves and to care for the sick and the elderly.

Again, we have to realize there's never going to be enough work for everyone.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
7. Provide humanitarian aid around the world as needed and affordable but only in the interest of saving lives, not profit.

Agreed.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
In the mid-70s, the US economy was a mess and even worse, we impeached a president which put the integrity of the country in question for the first time that I can remember.

Good ideas, but the only thing I disagree with is the above statement.

Impeaching a corrupt president shows the system and the people are responsible, understand the rule of law and have integrity and credibility, not that the country has a lack of any of those virtues. I believe the world would much rather see the US impeach Obama and retroactively impeach or charge Bush/Clinton/Bush, than go along with the fallacy that the lot of them were anything other than traitors, criminals and corporate tools. People generally respect intelligence and action when other people, a corporation, group or country recognize their problem and take the initiative to sort out their own problems as well as those that effect the entire world.

The longer the people of the US wait to sort this out, the harder it will be for them to operate in the rest of the world as individuals and as a country.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: bobs_uruncle
True, it showed the system works. Maybe it was the way I felt at the time not expecting corruption to exist like that. I was a naive teenager after all .

My only problem is that part where people are working for what they're getting in benefits. Not so much that they're working for it, but that the value of those benefits probably is vastly inferior compared to the work that they are doing if they're given a fair market value. For many of these people, being on the dole probably isn't voluntary, and the system that you're setting up is essentially that they either be homeless/starve or they be put into indentured servitude. There needs to be some kind of balance to such a system so that we can ensure that we're not basically forcing vast swathes of the population to sell themselves into high class slavery just so they don't starve to death.

I'm not opposed to the value of those benefits being deducted from their pay, but I am firmly against any system that doesn't give a man a fair value for his labor, and I'm definitely against a system that essentially keeps people dependent upon the system for the rest of their lives, which is exactly what is going to happen if their only pay is those benefits because they'll never be able to actually work themselves away from it by being responsible and saving up

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti
I dont't agree with your first two points. It doesn't account for our biggest problems of debt-backed currency, age demographics, or the efficiency of machines and automation. I will address the issues that I disagree with.


1. I believe we are aiming for energy independence, but at the expense of the environment? I disagree, the environment is where we live. To muck it up even more for progress could be our doom. I'd rather live as a hunter/gatherer than have to wear a respirator to enjoy the environment.

2. You start going down a slippery slope once you force companies to locate in certain areas and forcing people to work. My region (downstate Illinois) is very economically depressed and a business should have no problem finding good laborers. The problem is that the large part of the population that receives govt. assistance has it pretty good for not working. I have offered employment to people who live in our local government subsidized neighborhood but I can't pay enough to get them to work, and I can see their point. Their benefits are worth somewhere near 20k a year to do nothing. Who wants to do hard, labor intensive work all year for 5-10k more per year? And that difference would be nearly gone once the tax man comes.

To your last comments, we can never pay down the national debt. It's mathematically impossible because of the debt-based monetary system. The Fed prints $100 for a borrower, but the debt is $105 including interest. There is always more debt than money. It is essentially a system of perpetual debt and refinancing.

I believe this monetary system is the sole catalyst for the hardships the people face today. It is a system that will be proven in time to be unsustainable under any economic policy we implement.

I think we should lower a full work week to 32 hour or less, but employees should be paid as if it was a full 40 hour week. That would force businesses to hire more people to keep the business open, even if they are just part-time jobs. It would lessen profit margin for a business, but that would come at the expense of upper management and shareholders.

A business with 1 millionaire CEO and 20 employees that are barely surviving is less economically stimulating than 1 CEO making 500k and 25 employees with 20k in disposable income. The extra 5 employees are the part time jobs hired to keep the business open 40 hours a week.

The social programs like Social Security and Medicare require the working class to fund the programs for the ones that are retired now through taxes. The problem arises when the population of the next generation of people is smaller than the previous. A fewer number of workers paying into these programs to sustain a larger number of people living off of them is unsustainable.

Ultimately the solution is the end of the Fed and a return to a wealth-backed non inflationary monetary system. The problem is that if someone like Kennedy signs something like executive order 11110, the powers that be don't like it too much. I think the best answer for all of this is on the horizon with Bitcoin, as it is a worldwide and decentralized currency.

originally posted by: VoidHawk
You got my vote, and I dont live in the US

Have you heard that those who generate their own power via solar panels must pay a tax? If that doesn't wake people up to whats going on then nothing will!

It's do with being able to sell your surplus electricity back to the grid. You store the energy from the solar panels in lead batteries, then with the correct connection cables, you can put that energy back into the grid. But the electric companies were upset that people could charge up their batteries using low rate electricity and sell it back at peak rate times, thus cutting into their profits.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
a reply to: VoidHawk
I didn't know that but I guess I'm not surprised. The powers that be are just so out of touch with reality they don't know what to do to get things back on track.

You present some interesting ideas, some of which I'd agree with in principle and others that I wouldn't.

The one thing I would ask you to consider about bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US is this (and I don't have an answer either) Do we want to bring back the POLLUTION that is prevalent to manufacturing into our own backyards? You can see the damage that 'drill baby drill' is causing today, add to that industral waste of all types and I doubt the ecology would survive. One of your points about new technologies (and processes - physical and managerial) could cut down on it with proper incentives (incentives require government BTW). I remember the smog in Los Angeles in the 70's - it could get brutal and it's much better now.

Nice thread...

Good Gerald Ford quote, most of what I remember of him, I was young too, was is physical clumsiness (spelling help anyone). President Carter took up his idea as well....

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
In the mid-70s, the US economy was a mess and even worse, we impeached a president which put the integrity of the country in question for the first time that I can remember.

Good ideas, but the only thing I disagree with is the above statement.

Impeaching a corrupt president shows the system and the people are responsible, understand the rule of law and have integrity and credibility, not that the country has a lack of any of those virtues.

Richard Nixon was not impeached.

The House Judciary Committee recommended impeachment proceeding after discussions with Republican leaders he chose to resign.

www.history.com...

n May 1974, the House Judiciary Committee began formal impeachment hearings against Nixon. On July 27 of that year, the first article of impeachment against the president was passed. Two more articles, for abuse of power and contempt of Congress, were approved on July 29 and 30. On August 5, Nixon complied with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring that he provide transcripts of the missing tapes, and the new evidence clearly implicated him in a cover up of the Watergate break-in. On August 8, Nixon announced his resignation, becoming the first president in U.S. history to voluntarily leave office.

Hey OP..

Interesting thread!..I will offer a simple answer,everybody that reads this, must go self sufficient for themselves and break away from the bonds of this fragile system which is on the brink of collapse.

I geniunely mean this and i recommend making the preparations today.

We need to be familiar with how to grow our own food and the techniques involved,even if it is a small scale home garden,so buying seeds etc is the first step in doing that..they will be priceless in the uncoming events!

Learning to hunt and purify water is also very important,along with all the nescessaries that go along with that and even solar power is worth a look.

I myself have done these preparations and feel ready for whatever the future brings.

About the environment, I'm not suggesting that go gang-busters against it and pollute like it was 1965. I'm only saying that until we are self-sufficient, we shouldn't be prevented from damming up a river to produce electricity because there's an endangered clam where the river meets the sea. There may be some casualties.

originally posted by: SouthernForkway26
2. You start going down a slippery slope once you force companies to locate in certain areas and forcing people to work. My region (downstate Illinois) is very economically depressed and a business should have no problem finding good laborers. The problem is that the large part of the population that receives govt. assistance has it pretty good for not working. I have offered employment to people who live in our local government subsidized neighborhood but I can't pay enough to get them to work, and I can see their point. Their benefits are worth somewhere near 20k a year to do nothing. Who wants to do hard, labor intensive work all year for 5-10k more per year? And that difference would be nearly gone once the tax man comes.

The issue I see is that companies went offshore to get cheep labor. That comes at the expense of paying those with no work the 20K a year. Since the taxpayer is already paying for those benefits, we should be able to afford to pay more for goods. No more 20K by the taxpayer. No work, no pay. The soup lines will get longer but if we educate the next generation to goal oriented, there will be less slackers in the future. I think that's one of the places we've gone wrong. There's little ambition in people now. It wasn't that way in my generation.

originally posted by: SouthernForkway26
I think we should lower a full work week to 32 hour or less, but employees should be paid as if it was a full 40 hour week. That would force businesses to hire more people to keep the business open, even if they are just part-time jobs. It would lessen profit margin for a business, but that would come at the expense of upper management and shareholders.

A business with 1 millionaire CEO and 20 employees that are barely surviving is less economically stimulating than 1 CEO making 500k and 25 employees with 20k in disposable income. The extra 5 employees are the part time jobs hired to keep the business open 40 hours a week.

That's part of the problem. CEO's and shareholders. Companies are so focused on margins and return on investment that they completely ignore everything else bad or good. I know because I work in such an environment where stupid decisions are made because the executives won't make their bonuses. It's a 12 month mentality with no long-term strategy.

originally posted by: SouthernForkway26
The social programs like Social Security and Medicare require the working class to fund the programs for the ones that are retired now through taxes. The problem arises when the population of the next generation of people is smaller than the previous. A fewer number of workers paying into these programs to sustain a larger number of people living off of them is unsustainable.

But my dream future, this country won't pour billions out to foreign regimes to protect some asset. Pour those funds to the states.

originally posted by: SouthernForkway26
Ultimately the solution is the end of the Fed and a return to a wealth-backed non inflationary monetary system. The problem is that if someone like Kennedy signs something like executive order 11110, the powers that be don't like it too much. I think the best answer for all of this is on the horizon with Bitcoin, as it is a worldwide and decentralized currency.

The powers that be... just can't seem to get anywhere without them *ing everything up

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
a reply to: bobs_uruncle
True, it showed the system works. Maybe it was the way I felt at the time not expecting corruption to exist like that. I was a naive teenager after all

.

We were all naive teenagers to one degree or another once upon a time ;-)

Cheers - Dave

originally posted by: FyreByrd

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
In the mid-70s, the US economy was a mess and even worse, we impeached a president which put the integrity of the country in question for the first time that I can remember.

Good ideas, but the only thing I disagree with is the above statement.

Impeaching a corrupt president shows the system and the people are responsible, understand the rule of law and have integrity and credibility, not that the country has a lack of any of those virtues.

Richard Nixon was not impeached.

The House Judciary Committee recommended impeachment proceeding after discussions with Republican leaders he chose to resign.

www.history.com...

n May 1974, the House Judiciary Committee began formal impeachment hearings against Nixon. On July 27 of that year, the first article of impeachment against the president was passed. Two more articles, for abuse of power and contempt of Congress, were approved on July 29 and 30. On August 5, Nixon complied with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring that he provide transcripts of the missing tapes, and the new evidence clearly implicated him in a cover up of the Watergate break-in. On August 8, Nixon announced his resignation, becoming the first president in U.S. history to voluntarily leave office.

Thanks, I stand corrected ;-) However, if Nixon had not of resigned then impeachment proceedings I expect would have gone forward. I guess the purpose of my post is that if you do the right thing, it generally results in respect and credibility and forcing Nixon's resignation or impeachment would have resulted in close to the same thing. The problem was removed.

Cheers - Dave

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
About the environment, I'm not suggesting that go gang-busters against it and pollute like it was 1965. I'm only saying that until we are self-sufficient, we shouldn't be prevented from damming up a river to produce electricity because there's an endangered clam where the river meets the sea. There may be some casualties.

Dams are very harmful for the environment and the systems dependent on them. Some sources:

www.americanrivers.org...

and www.internationalrivers.org...

They can be quite distructive.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
The issue I see is that companies went offshore to get cheep labor. That comes at the expense of paying those with no work the 20K a year. Since the taxpayer is already paying for those benefits, we should be able to afford to pay more for goods. No more 20K by the taxpayer. No work, no pay. The soup lines will get longer but if we educate the next generation to goal oriented, there will be less slackers in the future. I think that's one of the places we've gone wrong. There's little ambition in people now. It wasn't that way in my generation.

But my dream future, this country won't pour billions out to foreign regimes to protect some asset. Pour those funds to the states.

The powers that be... just can't seem to get anywhere without them *ing everything up

Time to add an extra layer of foil to the hat. This is a global meltdown thread after all.

I think the powers that be have to be thrilled with the way things are going. One thing that gives them control is that the Dollar is the most exchangeable item on the planet. They couldn't be happier to have military bases around the world so the USD gets spread through the many countries. As a double bonus they bury the United States taxpayer further in debt in the process. They like that China has a mountain of U.S. debt. China's economy is very dependent on the Dollar. Oil is traded globally with the Dollar (you don't wanna face the consequences of using anything else).

Your suggestions would be great for the country but not so great for the global proliferation of the USD. They are not so concerned about the U.S., it's more about the power and control of the world. Some requirements for expanding this influence is the U.S. military must remain the most powerful in the world, and for that the economy must be robust. The U.S. citizens have to be pacified enough to allow the system to continue. Hyperinflation must be avoided as well. This is combated by keeping the incredibly large pools of money concentrated to a few hands as possible (their own).

The United States is still the leading wealth producer even with our shrinking manufacturing base. The products and innovation are still the best in the world. It just so happens that in our monetary system more money actually means more debt. Looking at our balance sheet from an outside prospective would appear we have run this country to the ground. Maybe we have, but it is an inevitable event anyway due to the monetary system. The perpetual refinancing of the debt causes the debt to grow exponentially, and that is what you see in the national debt graphs since 1913. They will continue to massage this puppy till it pops, and they have some places around the world still yet to spread their money to create new demand and helping to curb hyperinflation. Once the USD pops you will see a GLOBAL meltdown unlike any in history.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

Although I wouldn't do all exactly as you have there, most of it is better than the general direction of today.
If you were to run, let me know! I'd vote for you!

originally posted by: BlubberyConspiracy
a reply to: LogicalGraphitti
If you were to run, let me know! I'd vote for you!

That makes two votes for me for president in this thread! I'd start getting ready for 2014 but I'm not eligible. I'm American by choice, not by birth.

And we know how that can go