[JustaGirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joelcolorado', 'W')e will rise to the occasion. Man can do what he WILLS to do. You watch. Its only a matter of allocation.

[JustaGirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'T')he cost wont be measured in dollars. It will be measured in freedom.

[retiredguy]

Vote Libertarian. Check out the Libertarian platform. It advocates adoption of most of the suggestion many of you have made.

Or continue to vote for one of the major party candidates and insure that we circle the drain even faster.

[zeke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hardtootell', 'I')'m much more persuasive in person than in writing. With all due respect to Campbell, Hirsch, et al, our spokesmen, for the most part, are geniuses who present the issue in a manner that barely exceeds the emotion required to teach integration by parts.

[The_Toecutter]

Here's what I would do:



On energy: End all subsidies to oil, gasoline, electricity, ect. Taxes will be imposed to account for all external costs(eg. environmental, military, ect). This will mean either we start using less profitable to industry but cheaper to consumers renewables, or consumers simply won't be able to consume this commodity and the energy industry bankrupts itself until smaller, less centralized companies fill in the market niche.

On corporate welfare: End it. All of it. No subsidies for any businesses.

On automobiles: Immediate tax on automobiles to account for all externalized costs in the form of pollution, ect. This will drive the costs of innefficient cars up heavily, so much so that consumers won't buy them. If the auto industry builds crappy, anemic, undersized cars that American's don't want in order to make them efficient enough to reduce the taxes, then they will go bankrupt; the government won't be bailing them out this time, so their only solutions will be to build 'hypercars' with good aerodynamics and composite bodies that don't sacrifice performance, size, or comfort, and/or build EVs, and just suck it up and make less profit than they would have in the 1990s(as opposed to no profit today). Smaller industries will be able to enter the mass market if the big automakers go under and they will provide the products that consumers want, but there might be a gap of a year or two. The tax will be used to help fund a national mass transit system.

On mass transit and rail: With subsidies for the trucking industry ended, roads will see far less wear and tear(average 18 wheeler accounts for thousands of times more road wear than a passenger car). Thus the highway budget could have half of its funds diverted to building a trolley-based mass transit network and high speed rail network around the U.S.

On defense: Cut defense spending by 80% and get rid of all overseas bases. America's soldiers will be stationed in America. End the Iraq war.

On money: Abolish the Federal Reserve. The U.S. currency will become a fixed amount.

On Social Security: End it. It's in debt, and current and future generations should not be compelled to support it.

On housing: No bailouts for homeowners OR banks. The banks that currently own much of the land and homes will have their monopolies broken up. Housing prices must be allowed to collapse to 1960s levels when adjusted for inflation, as they should be, so that housing becomes affordable again.

On free trade: Open borders, but employees in the U.S. for any publicly traded incorporated entity must be American citizens; small unincorporated businesses or non-publicly traded private corporations can employ who they please with no worries. Any publicly traded corporation caught knowingly employing illegal aliens will have its assets seized. America must become a small business economy again; publicly traded corporations will be ruthlessly regulated so as to prevent them from growing too large, while regulations on small businesses and small private companies will be relaxed greatly so as to foster incentive among ordinary Americans to participate in commerce without the government breathing down their necks. The open borders is to allow free, unscrutinized travel between nations. End NAFTA, end WTO.

On war on drugs: End it. Dissolve DEA, remove all penalties for recreational drug use, and allow cultivation of any plant currently considered a source of drugs. Industrial hemp will again be a viable alternative as a result too.

On food: All foods containing hormones, pesticide residues, and GMOs must be labeled as containing such. Consumers have a right to know what they are buying so that they can actually choose what products they wish not to consume.

On taxes: End all taxes on wages. All 'income' taxes will be made on capital gains and corporate profit exclusively. If you are an employee and your wages amount to $20,000 a year, you pay no 'income taxes'; if you are a CEO and your wages amount to $2 million a year, you pay no 'income taxes'; if you're an investor leeching off of the hard work of the employees, you will be taxes based on how much you have made; small time investors making less than $100,000 a year(adjust for inflation) from capital gains will have no taxes, and a logarithmic scale will be applied thereafter for those making more; this will prevent ordinary middle class people who invest from being penalized and thus help foster investment from ordinary people while taxing those who make fortunes off of investment without actually having to work.

On deficit spending: Balanced budget amendment to U.S. Constitution.

On big government: No more FBI, no more CIA, no more NSA, no more DEA, no more HSA, among countless other bureaucracies to be gutted...

On Foreign Debt: Cancel all debts held by foreign nations to the IMF and World Bank.

On War on Terror: End it.

On Gun control: No restrictions on what firearms Americans are allowed to own. Convicted felons may own whatever they want once they are out of prison.

On voting: All voting machines must have a verifiable paper trail; former felons cannot lose their right to vote.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', '
')On free trade: Open borders,

[retiredguy]

Toecutter,

Vote Libertarian. Most of what you want is part of their platform.

[The_Toecutter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o much for preserving regional carrying capacity.

[Cashmere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', 'H')ere's what I would do:

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', '
')On free trade: Open borders,

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', '.')..
On mass transit and rail: With subsidies for the trucking industry ended, roads will see far less wear and tear(average 18 wheeler accounts for thousands of times more road wear than a passenger car). Thus the highway budget could have half of its funds diverted to building a trolley-based mass transit network and high speed rail network around the U.S.
...

[TreeFarmer]

If I were king of the USA the first thing I would do would be to abolish all income based taxes and implement the FairTax proposal with its friendly-to-the-poor prebate.

Secondly I would end the war on drugs. Its been going for almost 40 years now and all its done is burn money and ruin lives. All drugs would be legal and government owned and operated clinics would adminsiter the hard stuff to anyone who is addicted for free. This would stop all the murders, theft, prostitution for drugs and drug money. We currently spend 69 billion per year on the war on drugs. Can you imagine how far that would go toward buildign highspeed rail or some windmills?

I would research and implement a comprehensive energy policy for the longterm benefit of the country. Almost certainly a large part would be a study to determine how much of the USA we can electrify and then implement a plan to build windmills and a HVDC system to help disperse the power generated by the windmills. I know it might mean we would need to build 100,000 large windmills but I would build them. As a person familiar with manufacturing and improvements due to modern quality management techniques I expect windmill life to go up dramatically and maintenance needs to decrease dramatically.

I would build "high speed" rail in our most heavily populated areas with its own track that it does not share with freight trains. I would definitely have this rail from say Richmond Virginia (so people coming from the south have a place to get on) all the way to Boston. High speed rail does not have to be 130 mph either, a train system that runs 80mph but is reliable would work very well.

I would stop all but a trickle of immigration. Anyone we let in would have to bring assets or some really desirable skills.

I would allow monuments/plaques with the 10 commandments (and other legal foundations as well) in public buildings. People need to know where our ideas of a legal system come from if nothing else.

Seat belts in cars and motorcycle helmets would no longer be mandatory. This giving up a little freedom for some added protection by the government has got to stop, it is a losing strategy.

Thats enough for now, I'll post what I would do on day 2 later.

TF

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', '
')Reduce per capita resource consumption, and carrying capacity goes up.

[Cashmere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')It's not about invasion. It's about the US becoming like Israel with bombs going off randomly in restaurants and buses.

[cube]

I agree with Cashmere on the above post.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', '.')..

[phaster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'Y')ou're in charge. You can allocate money in the U.S. any way you want.

I'd like to know 2 things:
1. What's your best-guess Peak Oil time line, meaning, when do you think production decline sets in and we exit this plateau, and what do you see the annual decline rate at?

2. Where do you spend the money.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', '.')..

[Cashmere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', '.')..