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Economic Action

Economic Action is one way the US can improve its standing in the world. Please add your Economic Action Solution and/or Vote for any/all of these offered below:.

Economic Action Portion of President Bush's January 10 Proposal

These bullets courtesy of BBC's At-a-glance: New strategy for Iraq: Iraq will commit $10bn of its own funds to reconstruction.
1/15/2007 10:47:58 AM

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Vote for all that apply OR Add your own Solution first

Current Tally and Ranking

Decriminalize Drugs

The trade in illegal drugs is the major destabilizing factor in Afganistan, Columbia and here in the US and is probably, directly and indirectly the chief source of funding for the Taliban and for Al Quaeda. Certainly the FARC in Columbia and the Mexican Mafia. Just for starters. Sensible Decriminalization of drugs would allow us to defund terrorism, organized international criminal cartels and really free up the resources to address drug addiction in a realistic, compassionate and effective ways.
1/29/2007 8:50:56 PM	Chris, L.A., Ca.

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Reduce the current account deficit

In an effort reduce the trade deficit, the US should encourage US multi national corporations to increase the minimum wage in emerging markets, which would create a middle class who can consume goods and services from America, as opposed to Americans only buying goods manufactured by international economies. Americans no longer manufacture the items we consume and subsequently send US dollars abroad. When Asian countries invest their surplus reserves in US government bonds (foreigners own 55% of our national debt), it finances our deficit, keeps interest rates artificially low and ultimately created a bubble market in real estate. 9% of the disposable income in this country is the direct result of home equity extractions. Should the consumer, who represents 70% of our economy) maximize their available credit, the US dollar will drop significantly. We've already diluted its value by printing $1 trillion in paper money in the last five years, which is backed by no assets (i.e. gold). The current budget deficits are also unsustainable, as told by Warren Buffett, George Soros, the IMF, Standard and Poors, Robert Rubin, Ben Stein and Paul Volcker to name a few. By increasing wages internationally, we will create new markets for our goods. The corresponding increase in revenue would outweight the short term increase in prices.
1/25/2007 12:18:55 PM	Ivory Johnson, Washington, DC

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Use the strength of US corporations and the US economy to forge new relationships in the developing world just as China is doing

In reading the Power Barometer over past weeks, it is apparent that China is effectively using economic development as a tool to build and cement both economic and political relationships with nations all over the world. China also appears to be using these relationships to freeze the US and the West out of relationships with these same countries. While China is doing this, the US seems to stick with the old model of the IMF and World Bank. A newly aggressive US foreign policy could create public/private partnerships with US companies, partially subsidized by tax incentives, that could balance or at least duplicate the successful Chinese strategy.
1/23/2007 11:50:27 PM	George B, San Rafael, CA

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Rebalance wealth distribution in U.S. through higher taxation of upper income segment, collection of taxes due, etc. to begin reduction of enormous debt service and shoring up of American credit standing as protection against loss of foreign confidence.

U.S. is lagging in so many measures of healthy societies. We are strapped by maldistribution of resources from dealing with with social security and medicare, poverty, crime, infant mortality and health care, education leadership and many other problems of infrastructure, environment, energy security. We have become a lagging nation--restoring our leadership could be a platform for a new alignment of political parties.
1/25/2007 2:17:54 PM	Paul R. Cooper

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Impeach George "Un-Tax the Rich and spend more friviously" Bush and Dick "Let's let the oil companies decide energy policy" Chaney.

Afterwords we'll pick up Haliburton, shake it upside down, and solve the national debt and make social security solvent with what falls out of its pockets.
1/25/2007 2:16:04 PM	Garrison Hale - Arlington VA

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The United States needs to critically examine our massive trade imbalance and begin to shift the burden of funding worldwide development to other countries, such as Japan.

While the GATT and WTO served American interests in reconstructing the global economy and limiting the appeal of Communism during the Cold War, we should begin to question the extent to which our national economy can sustain an assymetrical trading/ tariff scheme. We should match the thinly-veiled restrictions and tariffs placed on American goods, especially efforts to protect inefficient French agriculture. Moreover, we should determine certain industries- such as high-tech electronics- to be national security requirements, fostering domestic capacity. American free trade policies have encouraged manufacturers worldwide, creating greater prosperity in developing countries and even creating new industrial nations. Yet, this generosity is unsustainable over the long run; we must work to bring our trade deficit down in real terms.
1/25/2007 12:57:02 PM	Dustin Batson, New Orleans

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Anti-Chavez Action

To counter Hugo Chavez's pink wave and anti-US sentiment in Latin America, the US needs to work for a Pan-American Free Trade Agreement which would bolster ties across the continent and create incentives for countries to cooperate with the US.
1/15/2007 9:43:24 AM	Tia Monroy, Panama City

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Impose a "Tobin" tax on financial transactions such as foreign exhange trading, futures trading, and bond trading.

In 1960, U.S. GDP was $526.4 billion, and total financial turnover in all markets -- the stock markets, U.S. government securities trading, Futures Trading, Foreign Exchange Trading, Corporate Debt Trading, State and Municipal Bonds -- was $795.3 billion, or 1.5 times bigger than U.S. GDP. The largest share of financial turnover was U.S. government securities trading, which accounted for $478 billion, or 60.1% of all financial turnover. In 2000, U.S. GDP was $ 9.817 trillion. U.S. financial markets were $508.456 trillion, or 51.79 times bigger than U.S. GDP. U.S. government securities trading is 13.2% of financial turnover; futures trading, which is now dominated by financial �derivatives� such as contracts on Treasury bill rates, accounted for 67.5%; and foreign exchange trading accounted for 12.0% percent. With financial turnover at over $500 trillion, a tax of just one fifth of one percent (.002) would yield a bonanza of around one trillion dollars a year in tax revenue. Besides being a new source of tax revenues, such a tax would also discourage speculation, flipping, and churning; encourage longer holding periods for securities, especially stocks and bonds; and level the playing field between long-term and short-term financial expectations and outlooks, redirecting capital away from speculation and into more productive, long-term investments.
1/25/2007 12:57:43 PM	Publius

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Champion Economic Prosperity In The Developing World

Peace and international stability depend as much on economic prosperity as on collective security. Collective security without collective economic cooperation is virtually impossible to maintain. No longer can the U.S. appear to be acting solely in its own self-interest, nor can it act any longer as if its own national interest were all that mattered.
1/25/2007 3:02:44 PM	Dr. Todd Huffman, Eugene, Oregon

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Single Payer federal and/or state managed health care coverage cuts costs by cutting out high maintenance third party middle men.

Do you know how much Aetna, Humana, Blue Cross, Kaiser - or whichever one insures you - pays their executives? And about the millions paid from your premiums to lobby to keep out health care reform and keep in guys like that one in the White House? We pay more than other countries in the West for less. We buy inefficiencies and inequities Europeans reject. They live longer now than us. Our hospitals steal with padded bills. Inquire, and they lie like rugs. Time for a federal takeover. It,s only a little socialism, no more so than our public schools.
1/26/2007 3:02:17 AM	Janice Huth Byer, Annandale, VA

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Establish Fair Trade, Pro- Environmental Policy and end the Corporate Welfare State.

Currently, we want our own workers to make a good living wage with companies complying with environmental standards (which need to be improved) here in the USA. We give corporations all sorts of tax breaks with some even going so far as offshoring their headquarters in places like the Caymans Islands to avoid paying US taxes. In the end, countries that provide cheap or slave labor in environmentally disasterous conditions and great tax climates for the greedy to profit hurts the US and economy throughout the world as well as increasing global warming. The U.S needs to take a stand on these three issues to make good corporate citizens. We also need to encourage Americans to save money to stop our country from being the largest debtor nation on the planet.
1/25/2007 4:54:53 PM	L. Montgue

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Phase out the Crude oil gasoline Combustion Engine over a 15 year period using the pure ethanol engine, to include the Turboprop engine, creating at least 100 million new buy orders instead of waiting for the stockpile of ethanol fuel first as recommended by the President.

The current cross-sectional being run by the IRL will determine once and for all that Ethanol can produce enough RPM's to run all engines except for the Jet Engine. The new buy orders will create new jobs and ensure national security by keeping our crude oil supply for military Jet, Cargo Jet, and Passenger Jet Aircraft intact for centuries to come. The current abuse of crude oil supplies will ultimately endanger the National Security interests of the United States as well as the U.N. Security Council. The Economic impact would be to create new Jobs in the Automobile and Aircraft industries while permanently diversifying and stabilizing the transportation industry. This would also keep the environmentalists off the President's and Congress's back for a long time.
2/13/2007 1:51:45 PM	Donald Barker, Wilmington, NC

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Acheive carbon-neutral energy independence

Set a goal of zero energy imports in 10 years. We are quite capable of achieving this goal if we made it our number one priority with a mixture of solutions, but necessarily relying on a heavy nuclear power component. The best way to reduce the nuclear component in my mind would be to figure out how to scale up the industrial conversion of atmospheric CO2 into Dimethyl Ether (DME). We need to develop processes for this using solar energy, then we can use this as a carbon-neutral fuel where we use other carbon fuels today.
2/17/2007 9:31:06 PM	Kevin English, Austin TX

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Start decommissioning some of the 172 foreign bases - saves money [uncle sam needs such to reduce its foreign debt], indicates change from unitarism.

As long as the USA maintains some 450 000 troops in foreign lands on some 150+ bases [excluding Iraq/Afganistan] No one in the world will believe that the USA is not trying to be the prosecutor, judge, jury and hangman of sovereign states' internal/external policies. Moreover, such a move would increase in the political reform of some societies, for some survive as dictatorships/ heredetery rulers mainly due to the threat supported by USA troops.
1/26/2007 1:31:18 PM	Salamon, Canada

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Global Climate Change Initiative - Reduce GHG Emissions

Global climate change has already been attributed to greenhouse gas emissions, GHG. GHG can cause sea level rise, extreme weather patterns including hurricanes, changes in rainfall/snow which affects global agriculture, reduced ozone layer and increased spread of disease. The United States is the single largest emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, when we could be setting the global standard for environmental standards. We need follow the standards set by Kyoto Protocol to reduce global emissions as 160 nations have done by ratifying the treaty, which covers 55% of all global greenhouse emissions. California has adopted Kyoto-style legal limits on greenhouse gases with reductions of 25% by 2020 � California ranks the 12th highest emitter in the world. We should set higher MPG standards on all consumer vehicles to reduce the need for gasoline. Spend on research & development of alternate energy sources and market compact fluorescent light bulbs that easily reduce carbon emissions. A federal policy should be implemented to promote energy efficiency for consumers & big business instead of a policy geared to increase GDP without including the cost of environmental externalities.
1/29/2007 11:15:58 AM	Rose Stephen, Charleston SC

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Reduce huge farm subsidies and let the WTO talks progress further � for sustainable economic development of the world

Economic policy of a country is strongly linked to its foreign policy and vice-versa. It is also the economic status of a country which �forces� the other nations to �treat� that particular country in a �certain� positive manner. Take the examples of the emerging economies like China, India, and others, which were earlier categorized as the �developing� states. The US also needs to take into account the economic power of these growing markets and then revise its economic and foreign policies accordingly which would ensure economic growth for America as well. Also required at the US�s end is a re-look into its huge farm subsidies which is preventing the WTO talks to progress further as it needs to understand that the overall economic development of the whole world is the way to sustainable peace on this earth.
1/29/2007 12:47:13 AM	Anju Chandel, New Delhi, India.

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Discontinue all foreign aid immediately.

Quit sending our taxpayer money and other aid to those whom don't appreciate it or use it to better their peoples situations and lives. Use the money saved for domestic American projects that will better the lives of all American citizens.
1/25/2007 9:26:52 PM	Joe. Fountain Hills, AZ

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Make Irag the 51st State.

Oil dependence problem solved.
1/25/2007 1:36:30 PM	Buster, MD

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Stop the gas price insanity.

American people are the laziest, most apathetic people in the world. The will complain like crazy about gas prices but do nothing about it. So it has to be an easy solution to ban everyone together. Boycott one oil company at a time for one month each. Start with BP in the month of June 07. Just buy gas anywhere but BP. Then July is Exxon. Go alphabetically.
5/24/2007 7:31:48 AM	Sally Weithman Columbus Ohio

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Allow for legal production of Poppy agriculture and quell the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan resulting in reduced violence and greater security along with a reduction in unemployment, crime and poverty.

The Afghan people face an unemployment rate as high as 80% which has led to a return of the Taliban and warlord factions. These groups are able to recruit many citizens from the general population because there is no other way for citizens to provide for their families. Security is almost non-existant. If the U.S. were to support the production of Poppy agriculture by not destroying the Afghans' means of existance; protect growers and farmers; purchase the crops with fair prices; allow for export to the U.S. for legal medical and research use; destroying remaining and uneaded poppy and heroin supplies; the U.S. would spend a great deal less than they are currently and would spare many lives. The Afghan people would once again have a means of supporting themselves and would have no need for Taliban or warlords. This would also be environmentally beneficial because it would stop the chemical spraying and burning used to destroy current crops.
2/17/2007 10:00:58 AM	Linda E. Saint Paul, MN

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I would spend all the money currently spent on Iraq to give people there jobs.

Any fool can see that an idle people are a people who explore alternatives, including insurgency. The rate of unemployment in Iraq exceeds what we faced in the great depression. What did Roosevelt do? He put people to work on national reconstruction projects. He didn't hire some contractor to do it either. He hired unemployed folks to do the work. That is what needs to happen in Iraq, although I fear that our 3 years of failure to realize this problem may be too late given the political climate in this country to fund, and militarily defend such endeavors.
1/25/2007 9:36:46 PM	Steve Virginia

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Become leading edge resource for alternative fuels!

Despite the world wide influence of Exxon, and how our military is simply mercernaries on their behalf, we have to spark the next generation of industrialist pioneers like Standard Oil, etc. by revolutionizing the energy industry. We are major world consumers, energy is athe constant variable. This would redistribute the balance of economic power in our favor. this would require the US to change its business model fromone of instant greed to perserverance.
1/25/2007 4:42:25 PM	robgreg

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Helping out Latin America by transferring jobs from Asia to the Western Hemisphere

A long time ago, by the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, and by the taking by force of part of the Latin American world (California, Texas, the Southwest U.S.), the United States entered into a permanent relationship with the Central and South America. Aside from occasional meddling in politics such as the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, the overthrow of Allende in Chile in 1973, and the backing of the Contras in Nicaragua, the U.S. has done little to nurture this most important of relationships. Like a rejected spouse, Latina is seething with resentment and adopting a posture of defiance (in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, etc.). While the U.S. has been adventuring in every part of the world (Vietnam, Iraq, and all the other foreign entaglements of the last two hundred years, it has ignored the needs of its most immediate neighbors. Now we are threatening to bar the door to those whom we once proposed to protect when we issued the Monroe Doctrine. Wide-spread unemployment and social unrest has led to much immigration, and some native-born Americans are disturbed by events. What we can do now is to institute a massive job-creation program throughout Latin American. All the jobs that have been outsourced to Asian countries should be shipped back to this hemisphere. The economies of those to the south of us should be brought as close as possible to parity with our own. The wide-spread use of Spanish in the U.S. should not be a cause for resentment, but an incentive for all of us to learn the language, and ready ourselves for more and more interaction with Latina. Latina has everything the U.S. needs- oil, markets, a young population. We should come home from Iraq and take up again with our long-neglected spouse to the south- out with the new, in with the old! The United States is in, and of, the Americas, and our future destiny will be once more in the Western Hemisphere.
1/25/2007 2:29:25 PM	Bob Gallagher, Austin TX

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Renegotiate all trade agreements immediately.

We must review and renegotiate all our trade agreements. The middle class of America and common worker cannot continue on this path of lower wages and layoffs because CEO's want to make million dollar salaries and bonuses, while the minimum wage has not been raised in ten years. No trade deals without a completely fair trade agreement stating that whatever dollar amount we import, that we must export that same dollar amount of American made goods. Then begin a concerted effort in this country to develop and produce alternative energy fuels. This in itself would create jobs. Also, there MUST BE A CAP ON CEO SALARIES AND BONUSES, AND CORPORATE PROFITS. Let's say for every dollar of profit and equal dollar of investment into AMERICAN BASED AND PRODUCED products must offset it. And finally, if Farmers need to utilize foreign labor, we have a "registered day worker" program. Meaning the entire border of America will be closed except for eight entry areas which will be used to process day labors and "legal" entry into our country! Finally UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE for every American. This saves the corporations, and employees. It's time.
1/25/2007 2:25:42 PM	Sue Filutze, Idaho Falls, Id

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Restructure American schools to teach wealth creation rather than job skills. And get rid of the income tax.

In order to build a stronger, more resilient U.S. economy, to improve U.S. business competitiveness with the rest of the world, and to eliminate poverty in this country, we must first restructure our schools to teach everyone what wealthy parents teach their children--how to save, invest, build a business, and create wealth. Schools currently are structured to teach the vast majority of students--the poor and middle class--the skills they need to get a "good" job or begin a career. In other words, they are taught to help create wealth for a very small percentage of the population who already are wealthy. I recommend starting small, with a few schools in impoverished states--Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia, for example, and allow students the opportunity to voluntarily attend summer school, during which they will learn to start their own businesses, to avoid debt, and to invest their money wisely in real estate, stocks, etc. Once the idea proves sound, summer school across the country would be made mandatory and all students would learn to create their own wealth. This would help eliminate the current skyrocketing debt among American families, exponentially grow the number of small businesses, which account for a major percentage of jobs and wealth in this country, dramatically reduce concerns about jobs being moved oversees, and provide a more business-savvy employee pool for larger businesses. In addition, we need to seriously consider replacing the income tax with a national sales tax. Although a national sales tax is widely considered "regressive," meaning it hits the poor and middle class much harder than the wealthy, we could make it much more "progressive," by simply eliminating or reducing taxes on essentials--gasoline, food, and cars, homes, and clothing under a certain price--while charging more for more luxurious items. The infrastructure is already in place since most states already collect sales taxes, and we could simply have 50 states sending tax checks to the federal government rather than supporting the massive infrastructure required to collect taxes from all adults. We would encourage savings and investments, eliminate the current mass of confusing tax codes, eliminate the infamous "loopholes" so widely used by the wealthy, and even eliminate the IRS, saving billions of dollars a year.
1/25/2007 2:02:42 PM	Nyck Nayme, Reston, Va.

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It is amazing, crime dose pay. 2 elections hijacked by a proud to be a C student, who then places his type of super judges on the high court and other fed. courts, fires Rep. justice dept attorneys because they don't agree with the pres., he is the worst type of bully, rich and protected, he knows how to talk but not how to walk, loves war but won't go himself. just amazing and so many bought his religious crap.


3/5/2007 7:03:01 PM	West coast opinion.

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YOU BUY IT, YOU WEAR IT.


2/18/2007 2:38:10 AM	LGS Encinitas, CA

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Retool the U.S. auto industry & create a modern biofuels industry.

By retooling the auto industry the US can create vehicles 20-30% more fuel efficient at no extra cost using ultra-light materials. Increased safety, no compromise in size or performance these materials make an overall superior product than steel. Ask Boeing why it’s beating Airbus. Add a hybrid engine and add another 20-30% efficiency, price:~$2000. Create a biofuels industry with switch-grass (not corn) ethanol. Displace another 20-30% in oil use. Investment: $180B, half for retooling, half for biofuels industry, ~$70B net return per year. Goals: create ~1mil new US jobs, save ~1mil old jobs, move towards the hydrogen economy, break OPEC pricing power just like in the late 1970s, de-fund oil monarchs such as the Saudis, the Putins, the Chavezs, the Ahmadinejads, Exxon-Mobils, re-evaluate US military posturing/security commitments. Create a cleaner, fairer, safer world while making a handsome profit. www.rmi.org
6/22/2007 10:35:21 AM	Aaron Hyzen, New York

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Use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to overcome the price control of the OPEC Cartel, and forget about the ethanol solution.

The price of gasoline went up today to $2.65 per gallon, with 15 percent ethanol included in every gallon. The ethanol reduces the performance of the gasoline engine by 30 percent, in terms of miles per gallon. The Sherman Act was used very successfully in the past, against Standard Oil Co. to break up its control of the price of oil, and could be used against OPEC to bring the price of gasoline to less than one dollar a gal, where it should be. The ACT specificaaly states that it is to be used against any cartel, foreign or domestic. What are we waiting for??? Simmncerely yours: Kenneth B. Smith, P.E.
4/3/2007 1:50:58 PM	Kenneth B. Smith, P.E. Wilmington< D.E.

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