I was recently asked by someone close to the new administration what I would do to jump start our economy and what “out of the box” programs I would implement to help make America great again. I warned this person that what I would have to say wouldn’t be “sweet nothings” and that I believed that we needed to take our medicine and admit defeat and to get real about our problems and some solutions to get us positioned well for the mid and long term. There were no short term solutions because our problems were that deep rooted. I also knew that no politician would ever risk his reelection by suggesting or implementing tough love on our populace but I honestly think that is what is needed.
So, in a nutshell, my 10 crazy ideas not for the timid and I know these ideas will challenge people and get some folks really angry so I apologize in advance:
- Make retirement age 70 not 65. Social security benefits are killing our nation. We can’t afford it. People are living longer and retiring earlier. We should make people work and be productive and pay taxes for a longer period of time - heresy I know - but truthful and needed. We need more productivity from all of our workers, 70 is the new 60 anyway. Who said 65 years of age was a retirement birthright anyway? This will save hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars;
- No Medicare or health benefits to people over 85. My dad died at 94 years of age. The majority of the expenses racked up for his Medicaid benefit were from 92 to 94 years of age. People are living longer and using very expensive technology to squeeze a few more years of life for the elderly is a luxury we cannot afford. In the last 50 years or so, we have seen a 10 year added longevity curve just in men and it will soon reach 80 years of age. Our technology and medicines will keep us living longer but the really elderly shouldn’t be eating up an over indexed amount of our health costs that young people pay for. This will save hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. This will help us save on social security costs as well;
- Mandatory service. All graduating students from college MUST serve in a public service position for two to three years. The Government will pay them a stipend of which 25 percent of all payments go into a mandatory savings plan or the parents’ mandatory savings plan. All college debts must be paid off via the service career and after two to three years, the students can go into the world with real world experience with no debts and with cash savings in the bank. The students should all work in positions with the police; fire departments; hospitals; military; Peace Corps, etc. Help us to rebuild our infra-structure or educational systems. This move will help rebuild a sense of community and teach young adults the power of having no debt and of having savings in the bank. And it will also inject a higher sense of purpose into our young adults.
- No tax cuts for the middle class or wealthy for four years. We should focus all of our energies and dollars to lift the poorest of the poor out of poverty. That should be our priority. The poorest of the poor need the help immediately and in all of our budgets, they receive less than 15 percent of all dollars. I would cut the overall budgets but amp up dollars to the ones that need it most. This could save us hundreds of billions of dollars and get more equality into the system; cut waste; and really help those who need it;
- Tax cuts in the form of a government grant to a savings account. All other forms of tax cuts would go via check into a mandatory savings account that is established for each American household and placed in an FDIC-insured bank. If we stimulate consumer savings, banks will have money to loan to people and we won’t have to borrow money from other nations. I was amazed that the stimulus checks that were last sent were aimed at people going to a mall and using credit cards to charge up more stuff. We need to keep dollars in our own savings accounts. The government should make savings a mandatory program for each and every household. We will save hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments to foreign nations if we have more savings in US based banks;
- Less technology for our military. Technology is hyper expensive to maintain and keep relevant and it allows us to save lives because we send machines to do the work of people. If more people’s lives were at stake in a skirmish or war, our leaders would think twice about sending young Americans to fight for us. We have become so automated and high tech that our bills are astronomical and our trigger fingers are too easily placed on the wrong buttons. Slow down the technology spending for awhile and add more people to the service. It will create jobs, cut costs and make us more concerned about a policing action overseas. This will save us more than $100 billion and the world will be safer;
- Stop acting like we are a super world power when we are the biggest debtor in the world. Never in history has a country that owed so much money to foreign governments been seen as a super power. In fact, debtor nations are seen and weak and ineffective and non-aspirational. I would find a way to get some payback from countries, too, that we had helped and were now flourishing. I would stop acting like a worldwide police force or, if I was, I would charge a fee to help. There has got to be a way for Iraq to pay us back for our work and sacrifice in freeing the country from tyranny and oppression. We have sunk literally hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into their economy and the war and lost lives and shed blood. What is the payback? I would make our government adhere to the same regulations that companies have to do now in terms of market to market accounting and disclosures and to a Sarbanes-Oxley-like contract between government spending and budgeting. Why should a company be regulated when the government isn’t as it pertains to balance sheets and income statements and fiscal transparency? And isn’t it ironic that Communist countries now have better economies than ours? We need to face facts and stop being a debtor nation and become a savings-based economy;
- We need to birth more children. People are living longer and, at the same time, we are having fewer children. At some point soon we will flip and we will have less people being born than are dying off. This is a real problem. It means no growth of populace and productivity will decrease and we will be an old and decrepit nation. We need to celebrate children. We need to reward marriages with tax breaks. We need to reward people having more children. Guess who is the most productive nation on earth now? China. Why? They have all of the manpower and know how to manufacture goods. We need to birth more children to keep the country and economy growing and we need to create programs that shed light on the power of marriage and dual family households. Divorce and single family households are big drivers of poverty and issues for our country. We need to embrace true family values because it has an economic underpinning for our nation besides all of the goodness that comes from a true family environment;
- We need to refocus our schools and business schools onto “making stuff” on manufacturing. Our best and brightest should be going into the tech sectors or to Detroit or innovating to ship overseas our green tech. We need to stop graduating people who want to work on Wall Street and think our business is about dollars and esoteric financial instruments. The government should pay for students to go into math - engineering, technology and manufacturing -and no scholarships for Wall Street-oriented positions. We need to be the best manufacturers of cars and appliances and household goods and computers and network systems in the world. When a company buys from the US based partners, they should get a tax break. Keeping our dollars here and not sending them overseas will create an economic stimulus that is beyond our wildest dreams. Once Detroit is reinvented to make hybrid and electric cars and we don’t need to buy foreign oil, our air will be cleaner; our debt will be smaller; and we will save trillions of dollars. It is absolute madness that we borrow a trillion dollars from China and Japan so we can then send it over to OPEC nations to get their oil. Stop that madness;
- Government communications. The Government should do a mini-bailout for certain media companies and all newspapers. Traditional media is soon to go out of business. The Government should help prop up these institutions and in payback, all political media should be free. This way politicians won’t be so focused on fundraising and they can have the inventory to tell us what the content of their programs are and the media titans can try to be honest brokers to report on what is really happening. We need a thriving media to keep the process honest and working. The system is broken now. We give dollars to politicians who promise us the world. The politicians then give the monies to media companies to help them broadcast their message in a sound bite “No new taxes” so they can get elected or re-elected. The politicians are then in league with the donors. Let us just short circuit this craziness and have a real platform for communications and keep an independent media business thriving. It would make a lot of sense. If we are helping the banks and soon the car companies, we might as well help the media companies too and in return politicians will get free air time and space and we will be more informed consumers.
So there you go, ten out of the box crazy ideas. Many would work and help us. They would be short term unpopular but would work in the long term and we would leave a better world and a safer world to the next generation.
What are your out of the box ideas? Comment away here.
Tags: Ted Leonsis, Ted's Take, US Economy
All in all I think your ideas have some merit to them. I only question #3 - not in the idea, I like the idea, but in the money sense. If the government is hiring individuals are they going to deduct their college tuition from their salaries? If not, how is the government going to pay off all these students’ tuition? Or is it that you work UNTIL that 25% pays off your bills?
You hit on extremely important points in #8 and #9. I’ve continually watched our birth/death ratio fall and it’s really scary when you consider the same ratio of foreign countries. You’re comment about encouraging manufacturing and engineering has been said over and over again (I just graduated with a degree in engineering and now work in the manufacturing world on the design side for an All-American company) by our politicians yet, once again, we see more empty words.
Ted, I don’t like #10 because it still pits the politicians and the media in cahoots. Once the pioneering politicians bail out the media there’s a “you-owe-me” mentality, isn’t there? I’d love to see an outlaw of political commercials. Not one person can provide a 100% factual commercial run in this last election. Why is that not against the law? We elect people who get paid to deceive the masses.
The media sees what is going on in Washington better than most — why doesn’t the media adopt the mentality of, arguably, the majority of Americans and try to promote reform and an ousting of our unproductive politicians?
ted—-yikes #2 and #6 are literally more in the box, than out of the box–no medicare or health benefits for the very old people…i don’t think so
Wow is my first reaction. And my second as well.
Your first two crazy ideas challenge me the most, since I am 62 and my mother is now 85.
On the first, I want to slow down and play bit in life, as many of my friends are doing. You say keep going. I can do that and probably will, as long as I can enjoy the work and spend time with family. Mind plus body have to work together.
On the second, the country has spent over $4M in Medicare over the last few years to keep my mother going. Is she worth it? To me? To herself? To you and those that don’t know her? Are the last 5-10 years of life any less important than the first 5-10 years? Or any in-between?
Your know your thoughts are based on saving $$, not on the quality of life or the value to society of that life. I don’t have an answer, but I find it easier to agree with you - as long as it is not MY mother.
Keep me thinking, Ted. Challenge me!!
Now back to work.
Having been to China to adopt my son, I saw how the population there lives. They are poor. They can manufacture goods cheaply there because of overpopulation (supply of workers exceeds demand, driving down wages). The World Bank website says that, “In 1985 average income in China was $293; in 2006 the average income is $2,025.” While this is a huge improvement, I think you will be hard pressed to find any American who thinks this is just a wonderful situation for the Chinese.
The Census Bureau has estimated that we will grow from 295 million in 2005 to 420 million in 2050. So in 45 years, we will increase in population by over 33%. Man has been on this planet for thousands of years, but if you look at this: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/304859/World-Population-Growth-Through-History you will see why I am concerned and why everyone else should be as well. At the rate we’re going, we will need to find another planet to expand onto in the next couple hundred years. I don’t think we’ll master interplanetary travel in this amount of time.
I love #3
tough love, but it could work. I wonder how elderly Americans really feel about many of the high tech measures taken to extend their existence. Based on personal experience, Id bet a lot of the elderly don’t want them. But, I’ve also seen families obsessed by preserving life at any cost.
I wonder if you’ve thought this one through enough. You could have paid for every cost your father incurred. Maybe your father could have. My guess is that a lot of the wealth he amassed at the end of his life would have been eroded by paying for care. More to the point, most Americans are not even in this position and this suggestion would have the effect of forcing a lot of families to make the impossible choice of bankrupting themselves to pay for medical bills or telling mom or dad — ‘thanks for everything you did for me, but it’s time for you to go. I’ll honor all of your sacrifices by being selfish…’ It defies everything in the Judeo-Christian ethic and most of the world’s religions and would certainly make psychiatry/psychology a booming field to pursue.
The rest are sound ideas. This one could have a lot of unintended consequences. My guess is that it would create a medical bankruptcy crisis that the taxpayers would have to step in and bail out anyway.
I wonder how #2 should work. My granddad is about to become 84 y.o. So in 1 year, when he becomes 85 and not feeling well what do I do? Watching him dying instead of calling an ambulance? I think that as a civilized society we should carry these costs on our shoulders. It’s the price that we pay to be civilized IMHO.
Wonderfully innovative thoughts. I agree with most, but not all of them, especially denying Medicare to those over 85.
Regarding stimulating the economy, the Feds shouldn’t issue stimulus “checks”.
Rather, it ought to send out stimulus “vouchers” that must either be spent at retail stores (like gift cards) within 30 days or be deposited into long term savings accounts at an FDIC Banks within 30 days.
The immediate effect to be to stimulate the economy and improve the cash flow at our financial institutions. Both of which will help turn things around.
Two tamest:
1. Energy and tax credits for businesses that demonstrably support a federal impact flex time: 15% of first shift/daytime employees working between 5-7 am, 7-9 pm, and/or a four-day work week. (Perhaps on-line forms submitted annually)
2. Require all ISPs to collect a standard (token) PPV charge on any browsed content that has prerequisite age verification of any kind. (Even if the remote server does not charge for the content). The cumulative total would be required by law to appear on all monthly statements for parental awareness. Funds raised could go to paying for the setup, fighting cyber crime, addiction centers, online marriage-counseling centers, etc.
The industry would be mandated to invent, provide, and support the standard protocol (free download for content providers).
As a college student graduating in May I absolutely love the community service idea you have. My biggest concern after graduating is to find a well paying job so I will have the money to pay back my student loans. If that was not needed then I would join the Peace Corp or AmeriCorp in a heart beat. Your idea would not only give recent grads the chance to be able to manage their loan debt but also let people like me who just want to help have the chance to do so.
Laura T
Alpha Phi Omega - Iota Gamma
National Service Fraternity
I like most of your ideas but:
> No Medicare or health benefits to people over 85.
This is simply inhuman. Cost / Money shouldn’t be the only guiding factor.
Also aren’t your schemes moving more towards a socialistic state?
Certainly ideas we need to be discussing.
That care for your dad was expensive brings up the question of who will pay for the medical care of the elderly after 80? I have a 80 something year old friend of limited but independent means who recently broke her hip. She is well on the mend now. Her funds, which were created with the promise of continuing medicare would be wiped out quickly. She has no family. Would you dump her on the streets if medical care took all her funds?
Truly lifting the poor means providing jobs an deduction.
I am an artist and writer so the concept of actually producing goods has meaning for me.
However, I think that we need to discuss government transparency and lobbyists too. Until we have that nothing on this list is likely to be accomplished or even honestly discussed in Wash, D.C.
Lots to think about. Thanks.
wow! I’m sure glad I don’t live in the states! I don’t agree with most of the points he raised up! the first few ideas sound like Russia and other places like that! We work our butt off so we can retire and then try to live life! I find 65 is actually too old to do so, there’s so much things you can’t even do a that age! And it’s my right to have health care until I die, I paid enough taxes during my life that if at 80 or even 90 I need medical help, it should be available! It’s also my own right if I want to join the army or not; i shouldn’t be obliged to do so like in Russia! I’m grateful for the people that CHOOSE to be in the army and defend us when needed but I know personally that the army is just not for me! anyways, I hope no ideas like that ever develop in Canada!
> We need to birth more children.
How about relaxing the quota on immigration. That way you get quality brains cheaply without having to bear the cost to create them and nurture them?
I have to disagree with #2, the oldest of the old get kicked to the curb. Don’t like it.
Im not crazy about #1 either. People have worked all their lives. Give ‘em a break for crying out loud.
But I agree with the rest of them. #6 especially. How much per day is this war coasting us?
Some great ideas for the most part. However we should value old age as much as young, and health care while expensive during the last years of life due to the cutting edge technologies and willingness to take risk, its benefits flow downstream as successful treatments get cheaper for everyone as they become safer and more useful.
We also need to create many more opportunities to engage seniors in the community workforce much like you are proposing for college age individuals. As you get older a lot of jobs become impossible to do as well as a younger person can do them (other jobs of course become easier). Our current flavor of flawed Capitalism is a bit too Darwin-based.
Tech spending for the military is a tricky thing, there are still some major countries that would do us harm if they could - and some will try. Most countries in Asia are culturally more aggressive and nationalistic than it is political correct to talk about, and Islam has a history of bloody borders that has no end in sight, despite Islamic leaders who work hard to promote the faith in a positive manner.
Our population should not be increased by more native born babies, it should be increased by taking in Mexico and South America. We have a great opportunity to establish an amazing and robust service economy that would raise the standard of living of all of us if we would just embrace our Southern brothers (and fix some laws that discourage the middle class from employing house help full time - why can’t we go back to the days of Hazel?). We also need the influx of cheap labor to reintroduce sustainable farming in order to end the monoculture corporate farming economics we are trapped in today.
Last, the poverty comments are great. A read of The End of Poverty, an insightful book by Jeffrey Sachs (with forward by Bono) details a great plan and the benefits to all of us if we would set aside a small fraction of the U.S. GDP to fix World poverty (including our own).
#4: Help poor people? How? Hopefully it’s not just throwing money at them or to soup kitchens. Some people just CANT be helped, we must first realize that. Don’t force anyone to do anything.
#6: Less tech for our military? Are you insane?! How about we just stop meddling in other people’s business and diplomacy is our go-to weapon. Can we cut military spending a tad? Sure. Maybe 2%.
#8: We don’t need more people just to have this “wheel” spinning to fulfill our selfishness.
#10: NPR is just fine. We shouldn’t bailout anything that is ineffective. If they fail, they fail for a reason.
I say we just do 1-3, 7, and 9 and we’ll be on our way to the next golden age.
We should have lots of open dialog and kick these kind of ideas around. Maybe some work, maybe some don’t, but it is about time we took a fresh look at many things.
On the tax cuts, these are generally employed when the economy is faltering for economic stimulus — we would not get any stimulus from tax cuts if the money is saved (we want the money spent and re-spent ( explained here http://random_eric.posterous.com/economic-recovery-a-taxpayer-d ) The wealthy do tend to save tax cuts, and the poor tend to spend theirs — so if we want economic stimulus it makes more sense to give tax cuts to the poor.
I really do like the public service idea and I think that may have a chance with our new President.
Keep thinking out of the box!
EP
My quick take on each of your points.
1. Right on
2. Never would fly, but agree that we spend too much at end of life - we’re all going to go somehow
3. This is your best suggestion, but back it up making it illegal to extend credit to anyone under 21. Raise the age of legal adulthood to 21 too.
4. In addition to no tax cuts, implement a flat tax and wipe out most of IRS bureacracy, spend THAT money on the poor too.
5. This makes no sense, taxing money to give it back to go into savings? Mainly MY money for somebody else’s savings? Instead, make interest earned on long terms savings tax free - that will get money into banks. Get rid of capital gains on long term investments too.
6. Right on
7. Really right on. Europe owes us big time for our NATO expenses from WWII to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
8. I disagree. We need to get the current population working for lower wages, not more people working for lower wages. Auto workers making $80K a year is just plain unrealistic for the labor they perform.
9. Super right on.
10. Totally disagree. A bailed out press is not a free press. Mainstream media will always exist, it will just be in different forms, with more voices. Some will be trusted, some will not, but we’ve got that right now.
One additional point I would add is that we need to create some type of centralized health care that still provides freedom of choice, and remove the burden of funding and providing health care from employers and put it in the hands of a public-private agency. As a nation we have too much wealth not to provide adequate health care to each of our citizens.
My comment here is on your question in number 7. Do you really don’t know what is the pay?. Or are you just playing around?. Oil rings any bells?.
Taking the 85y/o idea and borrowing from the responses, shake ‘em up a little and you have an interesting take on the estate tax:
You have an illness that requires high risk poor outlook; your assets and age together are above a certain threshold that together disqualify you for gov’t medical assistance.
If you have earned the funds to pay to extend your life you can use the money for this assistance. Or you can pass it on to your kids who would then perhaps have to make the same decision down the line.
I’m sure the logic here would have no problem passing through the rich old membership in Congress…
…”high-risk, poor-outlook [medical] assistance”
1.Social security isn’t killing our country. It’s incredibly effective with very little overhead. Also it’s a cost of doing business. Raise tariffs instead.
2. Riiiight let them die. Bet you won’t be saying the same thing when your costing your kids a fortune in medical care and have to explain it was your “out of the box” idea.
3. Why don’t you start each of these with “In my day”! That’s all your doing. This won’t fix human nature.
4. How about no war instead…if your going to try to wave a magic wand to fix the problem…
5. More money into the institutions that put is in this spot…nice.
6. Except history shows they would still send kids to war. Tech is the best thing for our troops.
7. Right cause in reality were much weaker then umm…errr… crap you’ll have to show me the country we just fall flat on our face against. I don’t like the money we spend on the military (who ever it used to belong to) but don’t pretend it’s not real.
8. Hint rehashing history isn’t thinking out of the box. No we don’t we need less people in this country. Automate the difference, it’s going to happen anyway.
9. Again right back to the old school. It’s 2008! We need manufacturing but not in the common workforce. I don’t think a US of China is going to solve our issues.
10. Okay that’s it. I give up… what you want is the good old days. Sorry print media isn’t going to fix it. Wrong century.
Regarding Number 3: The thirteenth amendment to The U.S. Constitution forbids mandatory service (involuntary servitude). “Neither slavery or involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States , or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Regarding Number 4: No tax cuts in a recession? That is out of the box, instead you suggest a direct transfer of wealth. This will help the economy how?
Regarding Number 6: Less technology for the military. You admit this will place lives at greater risk and you consider this a good thing? The advanced technology employed by our military prevents casualties among civilians and our soldiers. Should we stop finding ways to prevent casualties and instead go back to carpet bombing, fire bombing and bolt action rifles? You seem to think that there is always a choice as to weather to go to war or not, history shows us that is not true. Our fighting men and women deserve the best and they should get it.
Regarding Number 10: The government should use tax dollars to prop up failing traditional media companies? Again, how will this strengthen the economy? We are already helping the car companies and banks so let’s fund another bad business model that deserves to go out of business! Bailouts of any kind are unconstitutional and I oppose them on principal. Just another bad idea.
Out of the box?
All of these suggestions have been talked about, some studied seriously, it doesnt’ negate their worthiness but “OoTB’ naw. For example Robert Heinlein posited mandatory service in order to vote…other Science Fiction authors have also played on this theme.
1&2
We should have health care for all American citizens.
You forget that many technological advances were paid for (R&D) by our taxes, and subsidies. If you really want to save $$$$ stop allowing the war proffiteers to continue.
Finally, the best thing for this nation would be to invest in our children…that means Health, education, and welfare. We have all recognized this fact(or at least a great many have)but the programs need to be streamlined and updated-change is inevitable.
Thank You for allowing feedback to your own thoughts.
Sincerely
Marye
I so respect your opinions because you have built more then one thing. #3 i’m sure makes sense economically but it is not humane. 85 year olds shouldn’t be wondering who will pay the next bill, they should be honored.
Very interesting read.
I felt I had to add something to my last comments so here it is:
Here is my version of Out of the Box thinking;
Place an an Ititive on the next Federal election ballot, that simply gives citizens the right to think about how to initiate a system whereby we can choose where our tax dollars go and what percentages.
For example;
Medical research and development
elected officials monetary allotments
mandatory comunity-service at the age of 18 to 21
Outer-Space research
Ecological research
Habitat research
#1 seems inevitable. Can’t keep extending life expectancies and think retirement age isn’t going to need to change.
#2 is misguided, to me. On Thanksgiving, my mother, who has worked in healthcare for her entire 40+ year career, was telling us that it cost nearly $8K for my stepfather’s recent 2-hr stress test. She only found out when they got the bill from their insurance co for the balance and subsequently learned that Medicare paid 80% of this outlandish bill. Where is the oversight here? This is where we need focus our energies. Not on some random cut-off of benefits–which is frankly inhumane–but on having oversight committees to efficiently and effectively scrutinize and overhaul current Medicare practices along with wasteful, illogical and harmful practices of all the rest of our dysfunctional healthcare system.
To #9, I would also add the farming/agriculture industry. We’re finally coming around to understanding that just because you can buy apples cheaper from China, doesn’t mean that the ultimate cost of doing so isn’t higher for us in the end, once you add fuel and the price of putting our farmers out of business (not to mention good taste!). I’m not a big believer in subsidies, but we must, as a nation, support those who study and learn agriculture and develop new technology that enables us to grow better and more efficiently. We need to produce more that other countries want to buy, and we mustn’t make it impossible for small farmers to coexist along with the big ones.
#7
Force them to pay us? Ask them to pay us maybe…
I see some guy getting beat up on the street, hey, I’ll help you if you give me $5, otherwise forget it.
Whether you agree with the war or not, you don’t ask the people you are liberating/invading to foot the bill. It might sound good on paper (as many of these do), but your customer service is horrible and rightly so.
As for out-of-the-box thinking, I like Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-Texas) idea to cut taxes for 2 months (individual and corporate). Be a lot better than just giving them money (bailout). Of course everyone will say it’s just a tax cut for the rich…well, yeah, they (you) pay ‘em.
#6
Goes with a few others, like cutting off old people from Medicare. Retirement at 70. Real out-of-the-box thinking would be to treat the symptom…Social Security. Get rid of it. Personal bank accounts. How about Galveston, TX: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba514/
Less Technology for the Military, what?
I understand the point about making it more difficult for those in power to decide to go to war, but again, you’re treating the symptom. Those that decide will still decide to go regardless of the technology. Only thing that would hurt are the seamen, soldiers and marines.
I like thinking out-of-the-box, but I think you can come up with much better ideas.
With Much Respect,
chet
Sorry, I screwed up and put “less” when I meant “more”…
8. should have read:
Hint, rehashing history isn’t thinking out of the box. No, we don’t need more people in this country. Automate the difference (to make up for less workers), it’s going to happen anyway.
Again while I could have spent more time in other sections I really just want to reverse less to more.
1. Develop a large-scale RAIL SYSTEM. Replace buses with light rail. Reduce the cost of cross-country semi-traffic by creating a transportation grid. Install high-speed trains for cross-country passenger travel.
2. I agree with Steve on the workday, for the most part. 4 ten-hour days would greatly reduce the amount of driving, fuel, road use etc. In addition, parents have more time to spend with their children.
3. Rather then denying the elderly healthcare, we should eliminate government sponsored abortion clinics. Our nation needs our population to grow. Throughout history, a large percentage of pregnancies were unplanned. Part of the population deficiency is that abortion eliminates these children from our system.
4. Cater to math, science and foreign language at a young age. Put advanced students in advanced classes to eliminate boredom and make better use of their time.
Ted, I hate to say this but I think you are insane!
1.retirement age of 70- not a “crazy” idea, not even a new idea. in fact, a lot of people are working past 65 because they need to these days.
2.Medicare for the eldery removed- ummm, there is no way around this, you sound like a eugenic Nazzi. Why not just have the elderly walk off a cliff at 84 so we can save some food and oxygen too…..
3. mandatory service - not crazy or new. I think JFK brought this up a while ago, and there are quite a lot of people doing this as we speak.
4. why let the 84 year olds bear all the burden of Medicare and let the poor cash in? I say we lump them all together in your idea #2
5. so now the govmnt is telling me how much I should save and when I can down that? sounds like social security to me - been done.
6. Ummm- there u go again! most technology advances used in the civilian markets come from the military. take this crazy Internet thing younuse to make money on a daily. nuff said.
—— will continue this when I get off the bus.
Ted -
Here’s one completely out of the box idea for your friend in the new admin:
Stop spending our money.
I know it’s radical isn’t it. I mean who would’ve thought that if you don’t have the money don’t spend it huh?
Who would’ve thought that if federal spending went up over $1 trillion dollars in the last 8 years that spending more money like the new administration is going to do (probably 1 to 2 trillion dollars in ONE year) is going to do anything different but prove an incontrovertible fact:
Government does not create wealth - it only shuffles money around.
Unfortunately, the new administration in all their educated brilliance doesn’t have the brain power to grasp this concept.
Oh well I guess more of the same for the next 4 years.
[...] was surprised to read Washington Capitals owner/businessman Ted Leonsis’s idea of saving money by spending less on technology for the military. He offered the idea in response [...]
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China is not flourishing as an industrial country because of their population, but their labor laws, or should I say lack thereof. You can manufacture goods there extra cheap, that’s why everything is built in China. That’s also why the constantly de-value their currency. Their large population has made them an obvious market to sell goods in, but definitely not to manufacture goods in. More people? Really Ted? With natural resources dwindling and pollution at record highs, more people is just about the last thing we want on this planet. Less people is what we need.
Also, I don’t get your line about communist counties having a better economy than us. Which countries? China? All of those shots of Hong Kong and Shanghai, with their big skyscrapers and fancy cars, is a small percentage of the country. Most lower class Americans would be middle class in China. America’s per capita GDP PPP is 45,725, 6th in the world according to the IMF. China? 5,325, 100th in the world. Yeah, they’re the gold standard…and I’m better at hockey than Ovechkin.
For someone who likes to say people are “out of touch,” I’m surprised at some of the things on the list.
And before anyone else comments, replace “Hong Kong” with “Beijing” or any other major Chinese city. Yeah yeah, I forgot about “one country, two systems” or whatever the agreement is.