November 16, 2008
Time for a new moonshot
It's time to be America again.
Seriously.
It's time for big ideas. Big actions. Big initiatives.
It's time for this generation's moon shot.
So what is it?
Energy and Transportation.
* We will be rid of foreign oil in ten years.
* We will have no new gasoline powered cars sold in America in eight years.
* We will have a national smart electricity grid in eight years.
* We will produce 50% of our energy needs from solar, wind and nuclear in ten years.
* We will have a nationwide inter and intra-city mass transit system in ten years.
* Through conservation and efficiencies, will consume less energy in 2018 than we did in 2008
This is our moon shot. This is our contribution to future generations. And this is how we pull out of our economic and psychological morass.
Just takes some vision and a leader who can inspire a nation to get it done.
I want big ideas again.
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44 comments:
Yawn.
America is B.R.O.K.E, Keith.
Hasn't the government blown enough of American taxpayer's hard earned money already?
And you want some kind of New New Deal rocket ship to Mars.
Puhleeeease!!
There's a difference between spending and investing.
We've been spending. It's time to start investing.
Wow, someone needs to step back from the LSD. Who will be paying for this, China, the arabs. Oh I forgot they won't lend us any more money because their piggy banks are getting savaged. The newest faze of globalism will be every man (country) for itself. If the messiah wants to create this green heaven on earth a lot of Americans will be starving to pay for this utopia. Of couse maybe he can pull the trillions of dollers this would take out of his arse. Just a thought.
we will be starving in the streets in 3 years.
i would like to see personal solar panels for sell water, small, not those big things that sit on the top of your house. something people can afford you can't put em on a rental. load up a generator or something. also i'd like for them to made in the USA and not sent to china or mexico or canada to be put together. that got us in trouble to begin with. I am not familiar with solar technology but why not.
If your vision could come true
Keith ,it would create a lot of jobs
for the next 10 years . Your vision would be very productive . Your vision would reduce costs in the future also .
Want to pay for this investment?
1) pull our troops from every country on earth, and close down the bases
2) raise the retirement age to 72
There. That should do it.
This program would pay for itself over time. In spades.
How about 100% nuclear? Solar and wind are pipe dreams.
On mass transit, it is only acceptable if ZERO tax dollars are spent on it. It needs to be privatized. Taxpayer-funded mass transit is socialism. Just check NYC tax rates for proof of this. Sorry, but taxing people who work hard to buy cars just to give $2 rides to lazy-asses who work at McDonald's is unacceptable.
Investment? That word was invented by Bill Clinton as a slick way to disguise "spending." Spending is spending. Call it like it is.
Its too late. We've been anti intellectual for too long. There is no leadership left in government, only representation and politicians looking for re-election. Unless its bread and circuses with the bill due past the next election, it wont happen.
India just had a successful moon shot. The Asian cultures for the most part are big on education. I think Asia is going to inherit the empire. Hopefully not over our dead bodies.
Also,if you overhaul the medical system ,you might be able to trim
a lot of costs also . Address every
conceivable waste in government spending and chuck it . Address any area where more taxes should be levied and cut taxes in other areas .
Putting a National tax on gas or some luxury item could raise funds
for needed projects . Also you could go after the rich by changing the tax right offs that
have kept the rich avoiding taxes
for decades .
Enact a law that a Corporation will be taxed if they out-source a job and increase the import taxes .
Do anything possible to keep money in America . Give tax credits for venture capital invested into
these future projects
Raise money by lotteries (Don't laugh ) During early America often times they raise money pursuant
the lottery method .
Of course the overhaul of Wall Street and other corrupt entities would create more money going in the right direction ,rather than it ending up in the criminal corrupt unclean hands .
You could always print some money ,but it would be worth it.
First, America is bust.
You are not going to be able to finance this massive "Moon shot". Not in 10 years.
The planning alone will take at least 3-5 years on a nationwide level. The implementation at least 25.
Existing infrastructure (both physical and psychological) will require more time to replace. To do that, you would need to have a clean slate either through planned destruction of some cities and towns or through something along the lines of what Germany had after WWII. Had Germamy not been destroyed to a large extent, the infrastructure today would not have been possible or as easy.
But America does have massive amounts of open space still. Relocating a city would not be as difficult as retrofitting an old "poorly functioning" one.
But if anyone can do it, I believe America could literally pull itself out of the dumpster and be recreated in a quarter century.
The danger is that the "Moon shot" ends up looking more like General Motors in the end. Bad management, devoid of real modern design and planning and short term gains over, a sustainable apporoach.
America's next few generations will probably be the best and only hope. And from what I can see, they are, to a large extent, not prepared for the task.
Not due to a lack of intelligence or motivation, but due to the existing roadblocks to education, debt to income ratio and lack of opportunity to take groundbreaking ideas to the mainstream without being robbed blind while they try to bring those ideas to market.
America's next generations are though a brilliant and resourceful bunch. If they can't fix it, nobody can.
"Taxpayer-funded mass transit is socialism."
And taxpayer-funded mass warfare is not?
Please what's your point?
What would be wrong with taxpayer-funded mass transit? Is it just the word "socialism" that rubs you the wrong way? Or is it something else.
"Socialism" - I really don't know what an American defines this as. It seems to be almost like a swear word but it is thrown around as though it were a disease like ebola.
I've driven across the entire country on taxpayer-funded highways that are maintained and expanded by taxpayer funds driving a car that runs on taxpayer-funded gas produced by taxpayer-funded oil corporations for whom American soilders are fighting a proxy war.
Not to be shrill here but really we already have a taxpayer-funded mass transportation system and nobody seems to have a problem with that - or do we?
This "socialism" and "marxism" and "communism" fear-mongering is worn-out and old. Most of those using the words have no idea what they are actually saying. They just parrot the word.
I think you'll get your nuclear. From my understanding the driving force behind the whole climate change / green agenda that we've been getting up the wazoo from the media in the last decade has been to prepare for an all electric nuclear powered world. BTW. guess who owns the market in uranium ? why your old pal one-world-gov central bankster gang. After the market crashes nuclear might be a good investment.
Keith says it's not spending, it's an investment. Then he says it can be funded by cutting retirement and war costs, when he doesnt even know what the program IS. When will this blog get real again? Moonshots. Such as 20th century concept. Let's get original folks.
Yea, 'cause we ain't been there YET !!!
Did you read the iTulip article about the next bubble? Clean energy.
Makes perfect sense. Obama and congress need a 'new deal' type of program to create jobs and support incomes. There will be very little disagreement about this from the democrats and many repubs will jump on board as well.
So what does 'new deal' mean? It means infrastructure expenditure: roads, bridges and, most meaningfully, energy.
Obama is not going to 'drill, baby, drill' - he's going to R&D, baby, R&D.
Watch for a rash of tax cuts, grants, incentives and programs to favour R&D and use of wind, solar, hydrogen, anything but oil over the next 4 years. I agree that nuclear, as a technology, is a great solution but it is not politically popular and may get short shrift.
There will even be incentives for banks and venture capitalists to throw money at any clean energy company with a business plan.
As always, there will be a handful of companies at the beginning that make wild profits and then we'll all pile on. The profits will be especially wild once we get the next phase of inflation that Bernanke has created - oil needs to be close to $100.
I don't know if it will happen next year or the year after but sometime in the next 4 years. Eric Janzen predicted in early March that it would take 18 months or so, which brings us to next fall.
Here's what I want Keith. I want demagogues like you to get the f*ck out of my wallet.
For America to be America again, people like you need to mind your own business and stop thinking that you have the best and brightest ideas for how the hard earned money of Americans should be collected and spent.
You think a "moon shot" is needed to make America America again. We've already had a "moon shot". Was that investment worth it??
I don't know but the point is - when people are working two or three jobs to barely scrape by there can be no moral justification for some central planner like you to tax those people via direct taxation or inflation to fund one of your well intentioned massive programs for the benefit of society.
We're not talking about basic infrastructure here. Of course that is one of the government's responsibilities.
You are talking pie in the sky space missions.
How about we address basic needs as a nation before we address these pie in the sky wants of Keith??
When you come up with these pie in the sky "moonshot" ideas Keith you need to justify how it is a good investment. In what way is it a good investment?
It’s hard for me to dream big. I live near Kennedy Space Center that is set to shed 3,000-5,000 jobs in ’09 due to their lack of vision and planning for retiring the aging Space Shuttle and retooling for the mars project. This will create a 5-year gap of required personnel.
The word around here is that KSC workers are experts at crossword puzzles. A lot of people doing little for a lot of $$. There is obviously a lot of talent employed there, but they got lazy, complacent, and bloated like most other govt agencies & K'ors.
So here is an example of already having the facility and the talent for greatness and blowing it. The Shuttle concept was built in 1975!
Never been a big fan of NASA and its $$ wasting, but this area already has record f/c’s and a 7.2% unemp rate. These layoffs will make now look like the good times.
Is the USA capable of achieving big dreams anymore? I'm doubtful.
sorry, Keith. a moon shot would kill us and just be more waste, fraud, and abuse (Davis-Bacon).
we need baby steps.
i know what we can do, we can take our talent in financial engineering and use it to save the economies of the world!
Want to pay for this investment?
1) pull our troops from every country on earth, and close down the bases
2) raise the retirement age to 72
There. That should do it.
This program would pay for itself over time. In spades.
You can start with federal employees (old retirement system). These clowns start retiring in their early to mid 50s. Who thought that shit was sustainable?
Where to begin keith?
How about:
1) THERE IS NO HAPPY CHAPTER
2) THE HUMAN SPECIES WILL NOT BE DENIED A DIEOFF OF UPTO 80% IN THE NEXT DECADE.
Really Keith - do more reading...
Start here:
dieoff.com
Catton's "Overshoot" (1986)
And I thought you were "getting it"...
Oh well.
Any dollar spent on mass transit is a good dollar. A maglev from L.A. to S.F. would be less than 2 hours. Right now there isn't even rail to LAX. Our office recently moved downtown and the majority of the people take public transportation. People are happier, they're getting more exercise and spending less money. The idea of a car for every person in outdated.
America will Never be what it once was!
There is No loyalty, or ethics, forget about morals!
The dumbing down is alive and well!
Gen X want everything (and want it Now) but don't want to work for a damn thing!
Joining together for a common goal is a joke!
To many illegals and an influx of foreigners that "Do Not Want to Assimilate".....that want just what they can get, a free ride!!
.
Everybody who comes to America does assimilate.
It's just that they end up assimilated in crappy US-made cars, driving down crappy US-maintained roads, shoveling US-made high-fructose corn syrup fast food product in to their traps and feeding the tadpoles, sponge bob products through their eyes and scream holes.
But they are completely assimilated.
America can never be what it once was because what it once was never existed save for in the minds of the deluded evangelical fruitcakes.
In order to have a "Moon shot" you're going to need a rully, rully big "Money shot"
I doubt Peter North is going to be made Sec. of Treasury or Fed. Chairman anytime soon.
But he's the only one who could reall provide enough of a money shot to even give us a fighting chance.
I just got back from Morocco and this country amazes me on how much green energy they are using, Wind and Solar are powering this country, recycling waste management, as an American I was in shoke and embarrassed that we are not a leading nation in this endeavor. Granted Morocco is a small country with limited resources, but the amount of resources they have and the ideas that have taken shape there, we as the USA with huge amounts of resources could lead the world on Green Energy, seeing what Morroco has done amazes me.
WE can die like GM as a dinasour, or get smart and move forward. We can sit around and complain and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can regroup and I feel Obama is our first step towards regaining human development and getting back on some kind of good track to help our world, instead of screwing it all up. I have started investing money into this, not stupid get rich schemes it seems so many funds are investing in these day. Good luck to everyone!
Keith, you are sounding like one of those classic european central planning societies. Earth to Keith: it doesn't work. The free market, with reaonable regulation, is the best way to allocate resources, despite its pitfalls. And no, the housing problem is not a result of the free market. It's a result of some people having one of those big centrally planned ideas - the ownership society - and interference in the market by the Fed's centrally planned interest rate policy and housing activist groups like Acorn, as well as because of fraud everywhere.
It is clear you have not read Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" or Alexis de Toqueville,s "Democracy in America". As you were with Kindleberger's book, you will be glad you did. I am quite serious about this. Go read those books; they will open your eyes to the dangers of central planning and to the gift of America.
As for the person who said that no one knows what they are saying when they use the word "socialism", you need to read Hayek's book too. I'm sure you don't understand the word yourself.
Wanting the government to build things like roads and bridges and train tracks is not central planning. It's doing what governments all over the world have been doing since civilizations were first founded.
Remember, at the core I want to eliminate the income tax (and replace with a sales tax), and I want to see the complete withdrawal of US troops and bases from around the world. I'd also like to see a 10% cut in the bureaucracy, across the board, a rise in social security to 70 if not higher.
But I believe government has a role to play. Countries need infrastructure if their economies are to function to their potential. Go to bulgaria or mexico or most countries in africa for instance - crap infrastructure, and thus crap economy.
The US is being hindered by its infrastructure. Go sit in traffic in most major cities for an hour. Compare that to zipping from one side of the city to the other in minutes in many cities in Europe or Asia with rail.
Finally, how's that 'gift of America' working out now? With no government planning or regulation, we got this mess.
I dislike government, but there is a role to play.
We'll have none of the above since we spend all of our money bailing out assholes on Wall Street.
.
your soul means nothing to god...
For your sake you better hope so!
a fruitcake evangelical
.
Wanting the government to build things like roads and bridges and train tracks is not central planning. It's doing what governments all over the world have been doing since civilizations were first founded
Hey Keith. Nobody (except the most hardcore Libertarian) would dispute that government's role is to provide basic infrastructure.
That's not what you were talking about. I hardly think that a "moonshot" falls into the realm of basic infrastructure. That is way beyond the bridge to nowhere. Sheesh!
Frank said:
"On mass transit, it is only acceptable if ZERO tax dollars are spent on it. It needs to be privatized. Taxpayer-funded mass transit is socialism."
Ok, so what about roads? Are the roads privatized where you live?
Sorry, but taxing people who work hard to buy cars just to give $2 rides to lazy-asses who work at McDonald's is unacceptable.
Ok I get it now. You are completely missing the point. Where I live, everyone takes the train to work, not just minimum wage workers. Companies even pay for their workers' train passes.
America was NOT built by "leaders who can inspire a nation to get it done", Keith.
That is a socialist idea.
America was built by something far more powerful than an individual or small group of central planners.
It was built by the independent creativity, drive and entrepreneurial skill of a whole society of Americans in a free society and free economy.
That is the difference between free markets and totalitarianism.
It's so sad that you still don't "get it". You still don't get that the very thing that has destroyed America is the good intentions (and bad intentions) of "leaders".
America did not become great because of inspiring government leaders. It became great from free individuals.
Government can (and does) do a good job with fundamental research. DARPA is a good example. A little further downstream, the government should also create big incentives for solving certain problems. Beyond that, things get tricky: do we want government to try to pick technological winners? Probably not. But simultaneously selecting a number of promising technologies targeted at a given problem and funding then to drive them to proof of concept makes sense. Thereafter, perhaps leaving it to private sector to productionize and commercialize is enough. I am not sure where the boundary should be, but the further upstream one goes (towards real fundamental research), the riskier it gets from a cost perspective. For this reason, companies tend to stay away from these areas.
Keith, the housing mess is a direct result of govt having a big idea. It was called "the ownership society", where our govt decided that everyone should own a home. From that point on the wheels were set in motion up and down the entire housing economic chain. And it of course ended in disaster.
Building infrastrucutre will not get us to where we need to be. You can build only so many roads and train tracks. What we need is to unleash the creativity of individuals so they can produce innovative products and services that people will want to buy all over the world. This model is self-renewing and guarantees continued economic growth in the long run.
By the, the federal and state deptartments of transportation are screwing up our roads with their traffic calming measures and obnoxious flourecent-yellow green walk signs. I don't want their damn services anymore because they are trying to make life miserable for motorists and pedestrians. Here in NYC the DOT, at the urging of a fanatical bicycle activist group, now wants to put speed bumps on the major avenues like Broadway. The DOT has become the enemy of the people.
Heres a big idea, balance the budget and get the government out of this massive debt.
Obama isn't going to do that, he said it yesterday, he doesn't think now is the time to be fiscally prudent.
If you look at the demographics of just whom voted for this dude, you'll know that the country has changed. And if these are pull themselves-up by the bootstrap, nose to the grindstone types, I'd be shocked.
I really don't think that so-called spirit lives in them, that of independence, strong will to survive and prosper and worst of all the ability to sacrifice.
I just don't see it. But I do see more wasteful spending on the horizon, lets hope for the best and give them a chance, but the rugged individualism that made America great, may well be a thing of the past.
Take away the USA nuclear aresenal and all you have is Latin America, a nation loaded with debt. BTW, gun shops are filled with people preparing for the new reality: America becomes Detroit. Post WWII prosperity of going to the moon via the Greatest Generation is over. Boomers have gambled (thought they were investing) at Wall Street Casino and lost. Obama believes that even more make work programs and borrowing will fix the economy. Throwing fiscal caution to the wind, the government doubles down. Next step is hyperinflation (two years?), unless Obama pull a Volcker, whom I notice is on his team, then we get to disco party again with 20% interest rates. Obama promised American's the moon, and they bought it. Wait till the mooning they will get from the rest of the world once the messiah, the one, is in charge of America's unsecure future. America go to the moon? With Obama the country will be lucky to exist at all.
Obviously, the only project worth investing in is the change over in energy away from petroleum. I think that will involve micro-generation and electric cars. Walkable cities, and trains. Individuals will be making the necessary investment, because it won't come from the government. The government is currently run by the oil companies.
your soul means nothing to god...
Really it means nothing to god...
MY SOUL on the other hand means everything to god.
There's the big difference!!!!!
How do I know this? Because I just got off the phone with god. god said, to me in a voice that was not a voice as much as it was a sound - a beautiful sound with light and sound all mixing together and the smell of all the beautiful things mixing with memories, liked fresh baked bread and the smell of a lovely woman's skin between her breasts...Well this sound, thing specifically told me that the Evangelicals are lost, i.e the have no souls and that they should bet gettin busy with somethin else and right quick!!!
Well I paraphrase here but the point that god was making is this:
Ewe oil beef hooked!
I don't know what it means but after reflecting on it a little bit after we hung up all I can imagine is that the swirling sounds, scents and beautiful, beautiful light caused me not to understand this ONE VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE:
You all be fucked!
At leas the evangelical types.
Not religious types mind you, just those who become evangelical about anything....They, have no soul.
May some god bless you , cuz you gonna need it!
Sorry evangelicals you're not going to find a heaven waiting for you anywhere.
I am just breaking the bad news to you now so you can get busy making other plans.
Your living in a dreamworld Keith,
Too much corruption and laziness in America to do this in 10 years. How long ago was the Carter administration? Where have we come since then. Same economic BS different generation. I think it will take at least 25 years for change to happen.
Killing the Fed is paramount.
All else results in the same slow downward spiral.
Kill the Fed.
You've got it right, Keith. Sad that some commenters don't get it.
"Moonshot" doesn't mean research in futuristic technology. It means speading technology that works today as fast as possible -- solar, wind, and geothermal power, retrofitting buildings for efficiency, and electric vehicles and railroads.
(Nuclear takes too long and costs too much to compete, not to mention what do you do with the waste.)
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