Five Big Ideas We Should Be Talking About

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Five Big Ideas We Should Be Talking About
By Sara Robinson

February 4th, 2009 - 1:19am ET



"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized."
-- Daniel Burnham, American architect


Most progressives understand by now that the battle over the stimulus is, at heart, a philosophical debate over whether we're going to continue with 30 years of failed conservative economic policies, or chart a new direction for the country's future, built on an economics that's grounded in investment in the common good.

Given the stakes, it's frustrating to watch the discussion in Washington and on the news shows wander away from obvious solutions ("Buy American" policies, mortgage renegotiation, and increased oversight of bailout beneficiaries are such no-brainers it's hard to believe anybody serious would actually waste precious time debating them) and end up mired in ridiculous distractions and nit-picky details. This is a moment for a big vision, painted in bold strokes. We need our own shelf full of challenging new ideas that will shake up people's assumptions, change the terms of the discussion, and expand the country's ideas about what's possible in this unique moment.

Kicking this around with my CAF colleagues, we came up with our own list of outside-the-box Big Ideas that nobody's talking about—but may be much better approaches than anything that's currently appearing in the economic recovery bill.

Here are five Big Ideas that deserve to have a much wider hearing if we're really serious about getting America back up and running.


1. Buy failed banks and companies outright.


Back in early December, Michael Moore pointed out the basic insanity of giving $18 billion in bailout money to a company whose entire net worth wasn't even $3 billion:

You could buy all the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You're going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the "loan," and because we know they will default on that loan, you're going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.)

None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century...This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure—and millions of jobs. More important, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.

In a TV appearance that same week, Moore further proposed that the government divide GM's stock among employees and retirees in exchange for retiring their pension plans. This would relieve GM of an overwhelming benefits burden; and, at the same time, create a new set of shareholders with a deeply personal stake in seeing the company succeed. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009020604/five-big-ideas-we-should-be-talking-about

[MrPerson]

1. Pass Bankruptcy Mortgage Modification NOW