As I lay awake trying to solve the world's economic woes I found myself falling for the distractions created by the Democratic party. The latest one being the false impression that people stopped buying SUV's because they wanted environmentally friendly cars. What a load of crap!
SUV's were so popular because of safety and space. Soccer and hockey mom's could cart half the team to practice and not have to worry about being crushed in a roll over accident. It wasn't until the cost of filling the tank went up that sales of the vehicles went down. Unfortunately, by the time the gas prices went down the housing market and wall street crashed. Forcing everyone to drive cars that require less gas will mean less gas stations will be needed. So much for creating jobs.
Now lets go to the housing market. Millions of low income homeowners achieved their loans through questionable practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They were high risk customers to begin with. Add the increasing home heating costs (the housing markets collapse began in the low-income northern Midwest) and increasing auto fuel costs. They didn't have a chance. And the Federal Reserve's answer was to lower interest rates. This brought on board those homeowners who kept refinancing to get a better rate, but were spending the savings on increased energy and fuel bills.
Businesses also had to adjust to the increasing cost of energy. From operations costs, to shipping and receiving costs, to the costs of paying employees a wage that would be more than just to cover the drive to work. It didn't help when the Pelosi congress voted a huge jump in the minimum wage. States that increased taxes at this time just added to the job losses.
The Obama administration wants to create windmills and solar panels to fix the energy crisis and create jobs. Once they are up and running, how many jobs will it take to turn a windmill? The only future job I see in demand is the person who scrapes dead bugs and birds off the windmill blades and solar panels.
Instead of bankrupting the treasury to hand out checks to big businesses and banks, the goal of our government should be to generate commerce. To do that you need to put people to work. When President Obama starts bringing hundreds of thousands of members of the military home, they are going to want jobs. Where does he think they are going to work with unemployment growing by leaps and bounds? Again, the answer is ENERGY.
This is where the Republicans need to get on message. Resurrect "Drill here. Drill now!". The only business the U.S. should be nationalizing is energy. The U.S. needs to not only be energy self sufficient, it needs to make money exporting energy for profit. No more bowing down to Saudi Kings. We need to go after their market. We need to increase our oil refining and production capacity. We won't have to spend money and lives protecting their 'black gold' when we have our own. We also need to convert our power grids to increased nuclear power. An increased dependency on nuclear energy would allow more of our oil and coal to be exported for profit.
To begin the job creation, we turn over the construction, security and operations of new refineries, oil rigs, nuclear power and clean coal production plants to the military. Guarantee jobs for service personnel who return from active duty. Recruit security and building experts into military service. Employ out of work and under employed former military persons. And the new construction should be built as anti-terrorism fortresses. Because they will be targets. This plan would free up civilian jobs and create a working consumer base. They would spend money. And lowering fuel costs would put money back into the pockets of everyone. Export profits would pay back the money used to create this energy program.
Meanwhile we let the private sector build the windmills and solar panels. Make it a choice, not a mandate. If there is such a demand for "Green Energy" then they will do just fine on their own because that's how capitalism works. Personally, I hate the sight of those giant windmills cluttering up the pristine countryside as a reminder of jobs lost.
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