Okay, if you have read this blog before you know I am overly opinionated. But to use a term from Glenn Beck (CNN), “I am a thinker”. To me it seems obvious how to solve many issues we see in our nation today. Simple logic answers most issues. Here is a bit of a recap of what floats around in my mind when I hear any of these topics come up in the world today. Covered here is Energy (in different forms), health care, the economy, minimum wage, educational systems and welfare. While this is a large amount of topics, the solutions seem fairly straight forward to me.
Energy:
Here is a one area that covers several different areas. First we have the rise in fossil fuels that hit us every time we go to the pump. I get insulted when I fill up a gas can to mow the lawn and it costs $15. It is tiring to hear brain-dead people saying America has too large of appetite for fossil fuels, but still have made no change in their lives to lower consumption, only because they can easily afford the prices. The current prices are hitting the poorer people hard and making it tough to just get back and forth to work and to the store. There is change, but it is only in this poorer class of people, those that have the money do not think twice as they fill their Hummers.
How will this ever change? I wrote a post a while back:
How can Americans become less dependent on foreign fuel?
http://ReflectedThought.com/RandomThoughts/archive/2006/08/30/765.aspx
It briefly describes the idea of reducing consumption by a great margin with the help of rationing. The rationing not only affects people of every class evenly, but also encourages those that can afford them to use alternate energy vehicles to get more out of their ration. Poor people cannot afford that option, but they usually consume far less fuel than those with larger budgets.
Even if you do not like the idea of rationing (it is a pain however you look at it), that is the only answer to get people to reduce consumption, those that can afford it will continue to buy fuel even it is was $50 per gallon.
Isolate Energy:
There are other issues with energy besides fossil fuels. We currently use these fuels without regard to the pollution they generate. While I am no radical environmentalist, I have spent time sitting in a four lane highway in blistering heat waiting for traffic to move, being fumed out by all the exhaust. While sitting there looking at all these vehicles (which typically only had one person in them) along with viewing the brown clouds over our large cities, I wonder why we have not moved to a form of electric or hydrogen based vehicles by now.
Yes, I realize that we still need energy to provide that electricity or hydrogen, but if everyone where driving these types of vehicles, we could isolate the production of electricity or hydrogen to select areas in a much more efficient and less polluting methods than everyone using a fossil fueled vehicle. Our towns will become clean again and air pollution would drop to almost nothing. Move vehicle, industry and home heating/cooling to electric/hydrogen based and clean up the air along with obtaining more control on exactly what types of energy are used for production and where it is used.
Alternate Energy:
If you keep an eye out for new technology, you will find many areas where we could power the world with energy, but it is not used or is only used on a limited scale. Why? If we all are in such a need for energy, why do we not go full tilt on building new methods of energy? I really have no clue to that question, it does not make any sense to me.
Over the last few years I have read of several forms of alternate energy generation. One method is bio-fuels created from different forms such as an algae they are working on that is suppose to provide immense power generation. There is the solar power generation which uses an array of solar mirrors directed at a center tower with liquid salt, which is suppose to continue to generate power long after the sun is down from residual temperature of the liquid salt. They said, if I recall correctly, in a 1,500 square mile area, they could generate enough power to supply the entire USA. This would mean no fossil fuels for power except for special areas such as air travel.
Another form of energy that would be of good use, out here in the western part of the USA is geothermal. The Stirling engine which works on heat difference for power would be great as the geothermal temperatures would provide the hot end of the engine which could drive generators for power. If enough funds went into it, the west could probably power the entire USA from just geothermal.
Yesterday, I read in our local newspaper, an article about the work going on about floating platforms placed up in the jet stream for power generation, where winds go up to 330 mph. They said if we captured just 1 percent of this energy, we could easily power the entire USA. The problem currently is funding as they need a few hundred million for research. They said they have already done some limited tests and have had great results. Why not throw a billion that direction, the government probably wastes more than that on a daily basis, read about the waste on the education system below.
These are but a few of the possible solutions to the so called energy crisis. So, why is there no serious move to these? How about making a law that all vehicles sold in the USA after 2010 must be electric or run on hydrogen (no, no gas/electric)? That would shake the world fossil fuel market overnight!
It is time to wake up and ask the real questions, why is there not more movement to these alternate methods of energy generation? I bet the answer will end up all about greed..
Health Care:
In the USA, health care costs are just insane. Too much demand and not enough supply. They get away with charging amounts that would embarrass a normal person! One of the reasons is simply that insurance companies will pay it and pass the cost on their clients. They really have no competition and in some situations people are required to have insurance.
The answer to this issue is again simple to me, do not play their games. It is time for a national government sponsored health care system. Not one that depends on the corrupt, greed driven system of today, but an alternative system people can use at a much reduced cost. I posted more about this a while back at:
Is a National Health Care System, Doable?
http://ReflectedThought.com/RandomThoughts/ archive/2007/01/21/National_healthcare_system_dobable.aspx
Economy:
One major issue in this country is we no longer have balanced trade and do not produce many products or services. This nation was once had a large powerful manufacturing sector, but that was given away to the lowest paid labor force overseas. We can overcome this if we will just do it. The answer is also simple and is spelled out in the title of a post I made a while back:
Producers not Consumers:
http://ReflectedThought.com/RandomThoughts/archive/2005/11/29/656.aspx
Minimum Wage:
This is a touchy issue and usually driven by your current “class”. The poor see the need for an increase, while many that are wealthy say it robs business and they cannot exist with such high labor cost. Personally, I think the minimum wage should be set at least to $15 per hour. Any business that cannot afford this minimum rate should not be hiring people in the first place. Yes, this goes for fast food just the same as any business, if they paid their workers a living wage, they would not have the turn over and may be able to retain workers who take pride in customer service instead those that cannot even take an order correctly.
Additionally, I think government officials should have their salaries set based on the average salary for the area they are over. If the average wage for your area is $27,000 per year, then that is all the officials should expect for their salaries. It would not take long before they got in gear and actually worked to get the wage up in there area and help businesses grow and become more profitable.
I am not anti-business, I just think business have, for way too long, ripped off people by paying as little as they possibly can. In the older days, I did not believe in minimum wage, I figured if a person wanted to work for a low wage, let them. After seeing behind scenes of the business world, I realize that most businesses will not pay a penny more than the minimum they can get away with paying as many businesses simply do not care about their employees or feel there employees are of a lower class and do not deserve more. This is why I think we need a law that makes sure every employee will earn at least enough to live without having to hold down two jobs to do it!
I posted more about the minimum wage a while back at:
Minimum Wage Increase?
http://ReflectedThought.com/RandomThoughts/archive/2005/03/10/194.aspx
Educational System:
For many, the educational system in the USA is untouchable. That is, many people would not consider allowing the government to drastically change it, they just keep throwing more and more money at it expecting things to improve, but at what cost. In the 2003-2004 school year:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_025.asp?referer=list
It says that tax payers paid out over $511 billion for elementary and secondary education systems with a whopping total for all at over $826 billion. That is a cost of over $2,753 per person in the USA, not per student, but each living human being in the USA, all 300 million of them. I call that a joke! Imagine if the government wrote every person (including babies) a check each year for $2,753 and said, here, find some education...
Well, my answer is yet again, simple! It is time to change the entire educational system and update to the new world of technology. Yes, good teachers are required no matter what, but having a teacher teach the same thing, year after year and getting paid for it each year and then multiplying that by the number of schools is simply wrong. We are repeatedly paying for the same product, which is bad business.
In 2002, there were 123, 385 elementary and secondary schools in the USA. There were over 3 million teachers in those schools. That is a city in its own and what are we getting for it?
Education should not by forced on anyone, it should be there for everyone whenever they wish to make use of it regardless if they are 15 or 50, every citizen should have the ability to learn. I actually think it is a global need, but even if produced only for our own country, we could see a revolution in industry with new ideas and new businesses popping up all over. A person who has the opportunity to learn can achieve almost anything!
My idea will use a fraction of the educational budget and would have the entire curriculum (3-12 grades) along with maybe college level courses built into full interactive multimedia sessions. You simply sign on to a computer at home or at a school and do your work in what studies you require at your own pace. If you get stuck or have a question, simply hit the button and talk with a highly qualified teacher through the system using video conferencing, to help you understand. It would be a large call center (or several of them) that hire the best possible teachers at a premium salary and they sit there taking calls (so to say) when students need help. We do not need 3 million teachers, a few hundred to a few thousand should be able to handle it (my plan goes much larger though to be safe).
When I say interactive multimedia, I mean, high quality educational audio/video systems. Microsoft's new Silverlight technology could be just the ticket to provide the user interface and have all the power to drive the audio/video along with video conferencing with the teachers when needed. If the government took $50 billion and went to Hollywood, I am sure they would have an awesome full curriculum. They could hire the best teachers to work together and build the best possible curriculum giving all citizens the highest possible educational experience anywhere, second to none globally!
Schools would shrink to be a center with computer booths that people could use if they do not have a computer at home. Most people would probably use their own system at home. The best part of this is that anyone could sign on and learn just about anything without any cost to them, it is a benefit of being a citizen of the USA. A full education to be whatever you want to be at your finger tips 24/7!
Think about this, in 2003 the educational system cost $826 billion. So, we take $50 billion and make the curriculum, then spend $75 billion on all those 123,000 schools which would be greatly reduced in cost and size since they are nothing more than a series of computer booths and servers. Add on to that another $6 billion to pay 50,000 highly qualified teachers to staff the call centers at $120,000 salary per year each. By my numbers, the first year would only cost $131 billion saving $695 billion. The second year would be even more savings as you already have the curriculum. To be safe though, let us say you still spend another $5 billion per year improving the curriculum and making changes. The typical year would run $86 billion! About 10% of our current expense but open to allow every USA citizen to have eduction for free when they want it!
You might be wondering about the server cost and bandwidth for all that multimedia and where that cost comes in to play. I actually added that to the cost of the schools. The local servers would have the full curriculum and could serve that over the Internet or a local wireless network. The only real bandwidth would be for talking with teachers.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett say they want to give their fortunes away to help people. Why not implement a system like this or even close. Yes, there would be a lot of initial cost, but it would take little to maintain and the benefits would be immense! Come on Bill, take a real challenge, give the world education!
I posted more about this topic a while back at:
Is our educational system behind the times?
http://www.ReflectedThought.com/RandomThoughts/archive/2005/03/27/254.aspx
Welfare:
This is one of those areas that most do not like to even think about. They know the current system is abused and those that really need the help are most likely will not to receive it, while others use system as a method to not work. It does need to be revamped, and of course, I have ideas about that also...
Food stamps do not work! It is really that simple, there is so much fraud that the food stamp program should be eliminated. When I was young, we had to go on welfare due to my father's poor health. At that time we received commodities. You would go down and get your share of supplies. No, we did not have steak, nor pop or other things people with money had, but we had food that we could survive on until we got back on our feet. The food was not too great, as powdered eggs, powdered milk and corned beef hash, was not the best tasting, but no one else really wanted that food so there was not much of a market for people selling it off. This is the biggest problem with food stamps.
In today's world there really is no easy answer to fix food stamps. You can do whatever you want to prevent people from selling them and it will not work. I have heard of people who take others to the store, shop for things and then pay for it with food stamps, only to trade that food off for cash out in the parking lot at a substantial discount. Others I have personally heard, offer to sell them for cash. The corruption is the first issue.
Next we have the problem with people using them to buy things for the adults and let the kids live on trivial foods such as can of soup or peanut butter and jelly while the adults have steak. This is another area that there really is nothing that can be done with our current system.
The answer of using welfare food that I mentioned above is the best solution to this issue. Most of the food is not that desirable, but at least it keeps a person alive until they can get their life moving along. It also helps to encourage them to do so as they do not want to live on that kind of food.
We also have the problem of those that just do not want to work. What should be done with them. I would take those that are homeless and provide them a simple government apartment of a type with a single room with a basic bed and shared bathrooms. I would not allow music or TV in the rooms nor would I allow married couples to share the same room, they would have to live in separate areas as yet another encouragement to better their lives. Educational systems would be available to help those that wanted to better their lives.
The food would be in a cafeteria and be basic styles. If a person is there when it is severed, they eat, if not they go without. Since they are not working they should be able to easily make it to regular scheduled meals.
This is the biggest problem with welfare in general though. If you do not work, you usually get some help, but after you are working you usually get the boot from most services. They should do more to help those that are trying to improve their lives.
Summary:
As you can see, I have lots of opinions of how things should go and some of you may not agree with them. To me though, they just make common sense. It is hard for me to understand why these things are not already in play in today's world. The above suggestions would eliminate our need for foreign oil, give the working poor a chance, provide everyone a free education when they need it, fix our economy and give everyone an alternative for health care (I also think it should be done with auto insurance as it is monitory in many States).