How are we going to create jobs and rebuild our economy? What is the best path to take?

A technical education for the American people is the key. EVERYTHING you just listed could be fixed if all Americans could hold technology related positions. Human technology is only becoming more complex-- more and more people will be required to create more and more devices. Technology, in a way, is part of what separates humans from animals; it is something we will seek so long as we exist. Right now, there is ever-growing demand for people in technical fields. It is almost a self sustaining process; the more people that create new technology the more people create new technology-- technology builds upon itself. The problem we have now is, there aren't enough people helping to build our technological cycle. Our education system by and large is woefully insufficient to create large amounts of scientists, engineers, and technicians. If we could just get people back to school and into technical programs we would have much less trouble with outsourcing of jobs because (higher) education in other parts of the world largely is largely substandard compared to ours. We'd have a workeable economic niche.

If the government ACTUALLY wanted to help kickstart our economy, it'd be as simple as getting people a higher education for free at specialized public universities. (They can't simply pay existing institutions or the cost will be out of control). That really would be a useful investment in our infrastructure...

Originally posted by orionthehunter
Corporations here in the US are already importing engineers and other highly skilled workers. I am against a lot of imported workers here unless American workers are not going to be displaced by foreigners who are willing to work for a lot less in these more highly skilled jobs. I read stories about highly skilled workers here getting fired only to be replaced by foreigners willing to work cheap and one company didn't even wait for the displaced Americans to leave the company.

I'm not rich or a CEO or anything like that but if I were going to start up a company that required hundreds of workers and someone was going to tax me at 95%, I don't know why I would choose to stay in this oountry.

Like I said Americans are not like the Chinese,or Japanese who are willing to sacrifice for their country.
No you are not going to be taxed at 95 percent until you are making 2 million a year. We had a 95 percent tax until the
50s and we were the no. 1 country in the world. If you cant live well on 2 million a year , then leave and go someplace
else. Japanese CEOs make 500 thousand a year ,not 250 million like the CEO of Home Depot. We should simply
be able to breed a few 150 IQ people to replace you anyway.
Unfortunately none of this will come to pass because not only are Americans Sheeple, but they Worship those Elite rich who are going to economically slaughter them.

Foreign scientists and engineers should not be allowed to displace american workers. They should only be brought in if needed not to lower the wages of american workers. Bill Gates"I should be allowed an endless supply of cheap labor."

reply to post by David9176

Sorry to hear that but it's not the first story like that i've heard unfortunately.

I believe all this outsourcing is like shooting a hole in your foot. Individual companies do it to increase the bottom line but the whole country suffers as our manufacturing jobs leave this country.

reply to post by David9176


While I’m certain somebody better at Macroeconomics can punch holes in this, I’ll reply to David9176’s post with this theory…

1 – Start with a large tax increase to the upper income brackets, the inheritance tax and perhaps an overall wealth tax. (This is going to end up being a ruse; please see Point 3.)

2 – Release a new, specific type of Government Bond. Like a Savings Bond, they would be cheap and available to everyone.

3 – Make the purchasing of said Bonds tax-deductible (If not downright tax-eliminating).

4 – All proceeds go into subsidizing infrastructure projects within the United States. Roads, bridges, schools and dams, damn pardon my French, could all be brought up to standard while employing a huge number of people. Oh, your local school district doesn’t want to pass a badly needed Bond Bill because it would hurt the taxpayers too much? How about we use these Bonds to buy up 1/3rd of your proposed local Bonds and drop the interest rate in the process thus saving the local taxpayers a ton of money? Want to reconsider passing that Bond Bill now? Well, hello there local jobs out the wazoo!

5 – Employ white-collar criminals, closely regulated…duh, to manage the project with three highly motivating conditions…
a) You are out of jail.
b) You do a kick-butt job; we’ll give you one helluva cash bonus.
c) You do a crappy job, well, guess where you're going back to? Now remember that whole lesson about dropping the soap, okay?

6 – Assuming the folks in Point 5 truly do their work this would means tax-free dividends to every Bond holder. Including the folks that were about to get b*tch-slapped by Point 1.

I think that with the dire needs of this nation at this point that this could truly be a win-win scenario.

David9176, this is yet another wonderful, thought-provoking posting. Kudos and please keep them coming.

Cheers!

Originally posted by DrCarter
I am new and this is my first post; sorry about not making an introduction but I had to jump in here with you guys on this one. First David love the post man, and RRokkyy's additions are great. I only disagree on the military spending. I am sure that our overseas allies will be at best unhappy with the lost income, not to mention regulating our borders. We certainly need to reassess our mission statement and have the military act with thought and compassion, not as blunt instrument as we have unfortunately been used as before. In all it would take time and fair minded just people to make the whole plan work, but just brilliant thoughts guys, I can definitely appreciate a direction like that.

DrCarter,

Creepy!

A recent post by David9176 made me make the plunge as well and comment immediately. Welcome aboard (and great first post).

Here's the post that got me to sign up...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Cheers!

reply to post by Infrasilent


I agree. Specialize in a technical field..it's specific and to the point and you learn employable skills. The days of English majors and Ancient Art History are long gone. A BA degree can be a waste of money. I have a niece who majored in Criminal Justice and couldn't find employment to save her life. She went on to spend more money to be a cop and still, no job. Lots of interviews but no offers; she's still working retail at the mall. I highly encourage young people to get a skill first, you can always go back to school.

reply to post by David9176


To be quite honest, being an independent and a dreamer of sorts,
a way to fix it will take generations of self sacrifice and paying off debts.

For our generation and maybe our grandchildren, it would be a undesirable thing, but it is however, a valid way to erase the money issues we face.

Being in the red only furthers our spiral staircase into economic depression, and being as far as we are, one slip up can mean change in the ways we were raised to uphold.

This is, of course, only what I think, and not a person who sat in economics class with his head up.

Originally posted by David9176
reply to post by orionthehunter

 

Corporations here in the US are already importing engineers and other highly skilled workers.

The last company I worked for, a profitable company with over 400 employees, decided to relocate to Mexico....just for the sake of increasing profits to boost stocks for shareholders. It was the only reason it was done. Everyone at my factory lost their job...although they had the option to MOVE TO MEXICO and still stay with the company which virtually no one did. I actually had to train my replacement who didn't speak a lick of English. I even had a translator with me at all times. They were going to pay him less than 2 dollars an hour...but I had to do it or risk the chance of losing my job and hence unemployment benefits and a 1000 bonus if I stayed till my end date. I had to have a buffer till I could find another job. I'd also like to add that my former workplace was NOT in a union. We never fought for anything there. They treated us well. our plant manager actually cried as he told all 400 of us at the same time that we were losing our jobs...he was losing his also as well.

edit on 11-3-2011 by David9176 because: (no reason given)

Sounds similar to my situation back in 2005
Electrolux and 2700 employees - have been a full time student ever since because of the lack of jobs in Michigan.

I envision a forum similar to ATS, but whose topics focus on product research and development. It would be an open-source science and engineering collaborative.

Its mission, to design products for a sustainable world – stuff that’s intended to either last a lifetime ( e.g. Craftsman hand tools, cast iron cookware, etc.) or be easily repaired, rebuilt, and upgraded (e.g. Zippo lighters, modular micro-homes, etc.).

Blueprints for the various manufacturing operations would be freely shared, allowing inspired entrepreneurs to setup shop anywhere and begin producing / selling - eventually saturating U.S. or international markets with super high-quality products.

reply to post by Infrasilent

If the government ACTUALLY wanted to help kickstart our economy, it'd be as simple as getting people a higher education for free at specialized public universities. (They can't simply pay existing institutions or the cost will be out of control). That really would be a useful investment in our infrastructure...

I absolutely agree our education system is lacking...although I believe much of the problem is caused by the decline of the middle class itself. Both parents have to work now in most families. Attention to some our kids needs are simply not where they would be if only one parent was working. I know we try...I try. When a parent is always there pretty much for the sole support of their kids, helping them with school work and just flat out being their for them...it makes a huge difference.

Really, IMO, energy based industries would be a great thing to focus our economy on as well...as it's self sustaining. We will always need energy, makes sense to make products here that produce it.

Free education would be great, I'd personally like to see college as a permanent extension of high school......but not costing thousands upon thousands of dollars to do it...and we need to find a way to keep our kids in school. That's a major battle we are losing.

reply to post by RedmoonMWC

Sounds similar to my situation back in 2005 Electrolux and 2700 employees - have been a full time student ever since because of the lack of jobs in Michigan.

I remember it. I live in Michigan...moved from indiana after I lost my job there. There is a plant in Greenville that I live close to that shut down. I'm really sorry that happened to you and hope for the best. Lots of people are in that position right now.

Originally posted by MrMaggotWolf
reply to post by David9176

 

To be quite honest, being an independent and a dreamer of sorts,
a way to fix it will take generations of self sacrifice and paying off debts.

For our generation and maybe our grandchildren, it would be a undesirable thing, but it is however, a valid way to erase the money issues we face.

Being in the red only furthers our spiral staircase into economic depression, and being as far as we are, one slip up can mean change in the ways we were raised to uphold.

This is, of course, only what I think, and not a person who sat in economics class with his head up.

I fixed the debt problem in my response. Why do we all have to suffer to pay off debt when there is a better solution? At the very least we can make it lessen the burden by eliminating a bit of profit from the system. It's really very simple and would actually force that money into other profit making endeavors.

reply to post by Hessling

1 – Start with a large tax increase to the upper income brackets, the inheritance tax and perhaps an overall wealth tax. (This is going to end up being a ruse; please see Point 3.) 2 – Release a new, specific type of Government Bond. Like a Savings Bond, they would be cheap and available to everyone. 3 – Make the purchasing of said Bonds tax-deductible (If not downright tax-eliminating). 4 – All proceeds go into subsidizing infrastructure projects within the United States. Roads, bridges, schools and dams, damn pardon my French, could all be brought up to standard while employing a huge number of people. Oh, your local school district doesn’t want to pass a badly needed Bond Bill because it would hurt the taxpayers too much? How about we use these Bonds to buy up 1/3rd of your proposed local Bonds and drop the interest rate in the process thus saving the local taxpayers a ton of money? Want to reconsider passing that Bond Bill now? Well, hello there local jobs out the wazoo!

Very interesting idea. has anything like this every been done before?

And btw thanks for all the nice comments.

Originally posted by David9176
reply to post by RedmoonMWC

 

Sounds similar to my situation back in 2005 Electrolux and 2700 employees - have been a full time student ever since because of the lack of jobs in Michigan.

I remember it. I live in Michigan...moved from indiana after I lost my job there. There is a plant in Greenville that I live close to that shut down. I'm really sorry that happened to you and hope for the best. Lots of people are in that position right now.

Thats the plant I worked at for 5 years.
The economy hasn't improved much since then either.

start a national program to build trash to oil plants using the Fischer–Tropsch process.

this will do three things.
1 create jobs.
2 get rid of landfills that create problems.
3 cut our need for oil from the middle east.

The Fischer–Tropsch process can make synthetic oil from trash, sewage organic waste and many toxic chemicals.
and it can make this oil at about $60 a barrel.
en.wikipedia.org...
blog.cafefoundation.org...
seekingalpha.com...
www.greencarcongress.com...

It can also make Butanol fuel a cleaner direct replacement for gasoline.
www.consumerenergyreport.com...

You can create thousands of jobs easily by enforcing immigration laws. One company alone recently got caught by ICE and 600 jobs were then available for legal citizens. That is just one company.

As far as rebuilding our economy goes, we need to spend money that goes back into our country instead of overseas. We currently send at least half a trillion dollars overseas I believe I heard due to importing oil. We could immediately start a program to convert cars to run on natural gas which we have plenty of. There are also a number of other alternative fuels we could be using if the government supported it. Raising costs to the average American consumer won't work too well since if you want average Americans to buy more expensive fuel efficient or hybrid vehicles, we'll need to save our money to buy them. Eventually there may be affordable electric vehicles or more affordable hybrids but they are a bit high priced for the average consumer here. I believe natural gas could be more affordable as an interim fuel.

I forgot to mention that if we pump half a trillion dollars per year into this country instead of overseas that should be a large economic boost. If natural gas fuel saves Americans 500 or even over $1000 dollars a year, that would be a super tax cut and a big economic boost for our country. Even converting coal to liquified fuel should be explored to see which fuel could be implemented faster to save us all money and boost our economy until electric cars become more practical for everyone.

1. STOP BUYING FROM CHINA
2. DO NOT DESTROY CONSITUTION
3. DO NOT DESTROY DOLLAR
4. GET RID OF YOUR GOVERNMENT
5. GET RID OF YOUR GOVERNMENT, REALLY
6.

Eliminate corporate tax loopholes and the Bush tax cuts.

businesses will have to sell more to make a profit and therefore will have to hire more people.

Originally posted by whatukno
Eliminate corporate tax loopholes and the Bush tax cuts.

businesses will have to sell more to make a profit and therefore will have to hire more people.

Possible, but they would hire those people overseas so they can pay them next to nothing.

1) Eliminate the Fed
2) Repudiate all debts caused by the Fed
3) Get out of the UN and get the UN out of America
4) Stop all foreign aid
5) Close all foreign bases and bring all troops home
6) Put those troops to work guarding the borders
7) Round up all illegals and deport them
8) Develop our own fuel sources stop buying from our enemies
9) Term limits on all of congress
10) No lawyers allowed in congress
11) Return to strict Constitutional governance
12) Disband the dept of education
13) End unionization of government workers
14) Punitive tariffs on all imports
15) End income and property taxes. Implement the Fairtax
16) Eliminate all corporate taxes(the fair tax will provide enough income for the government that income, property, and corporate taxes would be unnecessary)
17) Make all new laws show where the authority to make said law originates
18) Institute Zero Base budgeting. Every year, each department submitting a budget must start from zero and justify every dollar
19) End fractional reserve and debt based banking; return to the gold standard(or any other precious metal/substance). Make "money" actually worth something
20) Means testing for all social programs, time limits for any and all welfare programs.