Why the capitalists of the United States are failing the United States

 

I cannot even begin to state how crazy and backwards we have become. When the biggest dreamer in the United States is a psychotic South African that should tell you right there we are missing the boat in making America great again.

What made America great especially when you talk about market growth was projects like the St. Lawrence seaway, the railroads in the 19^th century and then the interstate highway system of the 20^th century. Folks it is 2025 in the 21^st century and we are arguing about who is to blame because our infrastructure is crumbling.

The Democrats and Republicans have made us hate each other so much we can’t do the basics in government anymore, yet that isn’t what this post is about.

Let’s talk about what we can do instead. I once wrote a rambling three glass of wine post that talked about what Elon Musk wants to do by going to Mars, but on an even grander scale, but that is another story.

I once wrote a post about an inter continental waterway to help alleviate some of the problems of global warming and climate change. We still need to work on that not like yesterday, but like last century. That is one project we need to consider and the benefits of that are astronomical.

We need an electric cross country high speed rail system. And as far as I am concerned the airlines should invest in it for their own growth. And that is one example of the problem. Companies and industries are stuck. They are not thinking ahead. They are spending tens of millions of dollars to save one percent on their taxes. That is flat out counter productive to growth.

To continue the example the airlines are already in the business of moving people about, but are dealing with multiple problems not the least of which is air traffic control.  Maybe we have too many planes in the air. Or maybe air travel should be more tailored to long haul travel. And if they invested in a rail system that used green energy you now create multiple industries that bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States ie, new rails, new trains, more green infrastructure and the list goes on. All that development spurs more development as people need services to go along with the growth.

Are American capitalists thinking like this? No! just flat out no. They spend more time convincing Congress to give them breaks instead of thinking what could they do with the hundreds of billions they are investing in wealth management companies hoping to create more wealth, that just sits there. Waste of money, waste of resources waste of our country appears to be the goal instead of investing in this country to grow it.

Congress should only give tax breaks to companies that create new growth and tax the hell out of the rest of them to pay for their waste of our country. 

Look at Dubai, look at China, they are investing in their future dramatically more than our capitalists even care about. We still have the greatest wealth on the country and it is rotting in hedge funds. We should tax the heck out of hedge funds so our capitalists move the money back into the country and grow it.

So if this crazy old fart can dream just as crazily as some psychotic billionaire why can’t the wealthy amongst us figure out that they will make more money not by sitting on it, but by putting it to work.

Again a canal system to move water around and help with hydroelectric power that runs along our current highway system so we can upgrade it while we are building the canals. And did you know that if you drive the major highways in Europe their rest areas or service areas are top of the line. You can eat at restaurants, fill up your car, shop, let the kids play at a small park and they even have umpteen amounts of charging stations for electric cars. And yes they charge to charge. Can you envision what a whole new waterway added along the highways could do for us. Also secondary bonuses are floods can be managed better, areas with water can share excess water and rain with areas with drought, you can build desalination plants to add to fresh water as needed. And what is that doing, adding to the ability to use the desert southwest for agriculture, giving us necessary water to fight wildfires, and since we can see hurricanes coming we can open the canals to move water quickly out of rising rivers to alleviate flood damage. Heck the hydroelectric power created by moving water powers the pumps to move the water if you do it right.

Folks Mexico is looking to build a cross country rail system to transport freight to help their economy. They are planning for this to compete with the Panama Canal. If they can think ahead why can’t we?

And you add more wind and solar energy along with the hydroelectric power to fuel electric high speed trains. Musk is building a small system in Las Vegas, imagine it working in and to and from various cities at a larger scale.

For example the Dallas Ft. Worth area has grown so much driving around is suicide. We need to build out our rapid transit system to look more like what they are planning to do in Dubai instead of this piecemeal once every ten years add a line madness.

And what does all this do? It adds new industries, add jobs and adds to the economy with real growth, not destroying our country with greed induced wealth building.

Our capitalists are failing us.

And some of the first steps to start doing this is to get money out of politics, rewrite the tax code to encourage growth and not reward greed, flesh out public private partnerships that uses private capital to invest to earn money and public input to make sure it benefits the country as a whole. An example is insurance companies should be required to invest in flood control as part of this canal growth. It helps them lower the cost of claims which helps to keep premiums in line, and they get their tax break for the money they invest so their bottom line can be improved based on positive investment, not tax breaks alone.

And with just an iota of amount of thought there are hundreds of small and large projects that can be developed. Again the airlines should invest in the short haul high speed trains, use airports for long haul and maybe add to the airport as train stations so no one loses out and more benefit. Why fill the air with plane trips from Dallas to Houston or Austin when you could drive closer to your house jump on one train station to go to the main train station and get their almost as fast as waiting two hours in an airport. They do some version of this in Europe all the time.

And people wonder why I say we need new parties; it isn’t because I hate Democrats or Republicans. I could care less. What I see is no vision by anyone in power in our country. That is why we need change. 

Again our capitalists are failing us so if we really want to make America great again, remove the stagnant aging morass in power and start building our future.