We have figured out how to solve the current economic crisis.
1- Stop paying money to foreign countries. We are giving billions of dollars every year to countries that hate us and conspire against us. Not cool. Stop paying them money. We give North Korea money all the time to try and make peace treaties with them. Okay, I like peace. Give it a shot. We did. They break the deals all the time whenever they feel like, and then extort us for more money to re-make the same deal that they just broke. Stop already! It isn't working! We are giving money to Egypt, Pakistan, North Korea, Syria, Jordan, etc. They hate us! Why support them?!! Why help them work to destroy us?!! That is self-destructive and increasing our deficit at the same time. Use the money that would be spent there and use it on infrastructure, schools, green technology (NO PORK ALLOWED!!!!) That is not an insignificant amount of money, and it would just be in addition to the source of funds that they currently have.
2- Get rid of unions. I'm sorry for all people in unions and feel that this would seriously hurt them, but fact of the matter is, they're going to lose their jobs anyways because we can't afford to pay them $80 per hour for 15 minutes of work. Unions slow work down considerably, and hike costs up way above anything reasonable. Unions were necessary when they were started, but legislation has been passed to control all the issues that unions formed around such as child labor laws, 40-hour work weeks, healthy working conditions, etc. Now, they are just focused on getting the most amount of money possible for the least amount of effort. They are rotting our capitalist society. President Obama wants to strengthen unions by removing the freedom of workers to vote against unionizing in a private vote (to be free of retribution). Aside from the banking industry, which is another tantrum, the biggest drain for the bailout is unionized industries. Auto, steel, Hollywood (where is their “patriotic duty” by bailing out their own industry?!!)..... Need I say more? Also, President Obama is talking about “protectionism”. This will force people to buy American goods under the guise of strengthening our economy. The problem with this is three fold. One, we have unions, which raise prices as it is. Two, this would give a monopoly to our unionized society which would give them the means to raise prices even more. Three, this would practically destroy any future chance of foreign trade after we get established economically enough to where whomever is in office decides that it is okay to trade world wide again. This leads to:
3- Equal tariffs. We are trading trading world wide with a higher tariff on our goods heading out than on goods heading in. Instead of protectionism by forbidding the purchase of foreign goods, place an equal tariff on their goods coming in. Countries may decide to lower their tariffs on our goods to what they want our tariffs to be on theirs. If not, we just raise ours to theirs and we make American goods more competetive. This may increase the price of some goods, but it would keep an explosion of prices by a monopolistic union society. Also, we could use the grounds to produce some deals with countries. For example: Freeze the current tariff rate with China for a finite period of time in exchange for them stopping North Korea. Not only do we stop paying North Korea and bending over backwards for them, and they cease to be a threat to South Korea, the US, heck, the world without us spending extra money on taking out the threat, but we maintain a low cost on goods from China which is allowing us to have some low cost goods to help the strain on our wallets. We could do various deals such as this with other countries to solve many of our problems. And best of all, it doesn't involve $800 trillion (the next “stimulus plan” that will be “necessary” after the current one in debate) in increased spending.
4- Move to a flat tax system. How great would it be if we didn't have to worry about deductions? Set a poverty line of income, and everybody above that has to pay some percentage of taxes. No loopholes, no punishment for working harder and making more money, no tax refunds, easy. What is your income? You owe this much money. Hong Kong has been using the flat tax system for fifty years and has had constant economic growth the entire time (some would say the best). Perfect! In light of the situation in California right now, this probably seems even more appealing as they wouldn't have to worry about being able to cash in a governmental IOU to get their money back.
5- Home loan window. Make a home loan option available for two years where people can buy a house or refinance for a 15 or 30 year mortgage at a government guaranteed 4% interest rate. This would get the housing market back on track. The two year window would provide the sense of urgency needed to get people out and buying the homes now, as well as allowing the free market to go free again (with the restrictions on lending that the Bush administration tried to get put in place years ago but was turned down by democrats because it was the racist thing to do) once things even out again.