by Mickey Walker – November 23, 2008
In
the days of olde when pirates were bold, there were
unchartered waters in most any compass direction from the Canary Islands and
west to the unknown. It was scary
to sail the high seas in those days perhaps to the edge of the earth and over
the side. Strange waters, though uncharted,
necessitated a chart notation from the master chart and mapmakers. But what could the chart makers say
about something they knew not of? Whenever they found themselves in waters, strange and unknown, they
affixed an ominous quote, “Here there be Tygers.” That should do it. Such a disclaimer should serve to warn
even the boldest of ship’s captains, perhaps even Blackbeard the pirate,
himself, lest they or he dare venture into those terrible dark places. And that brings us to the present day, November, 2008.
Where
do we go from here? We are on the
brink of a new year where Barack Obama has inherited from the Bush
Administration, a perfectly lovely mess that, in the best collegiate
vernacular, we must call FUBAR (fu---- up beyond all repair). We find ourselves ass deep in Tygers, so to speak. We have a national debt of over 10 Trillion dollars and no hopes of ever
paying back the money our leaders have borrowed from the Chinese, the Arabs,
and the Japanese. And we are still
borrowing, mindlessly, to finance our government’s basic operations. Deficits still soar toward a Trillion dollars
a year that gets added to the National Debt. Our financial markets in the US and other parts of the globe
are a shambles, and the US dollar is in the tank. Most every “expert” economist has tried their hand at
describing Derivatives and what they might be. But nobody seems to care about the nature or the mechanics
of the beast. Even Greenspan
cowers before the microphone because he knows full well what we have wrought
upon ourselves and the rest of the world with these “bookie bets” called Derivatives
which have NO value whatsoever. NONE. Yet there are
estimated to be over $500 Trillion of these little jewels floating about the
planet and poised to come home to roost. All we know is that we lost our house, our jobs, and our neighbors are
out buying ammunition. All we know
(on even the highest Palin scale of knowledge) is
that, financially, we are in a world of sh--. We don’t know how we got here. But that is not important; we don’t
want any cheese, we just want out of the trap. When you’re on the brink, unchartered waters can be double
scary.
Most
will agree that the mortgage meltdown of recent months in
this watershed year of 2008, was caused by borrowing money that did not exist. Yes, that’s right, money that is
borrowed and lent is as ethereal as the air or the will of the wisp in the
Southeast Texas marshes near Winnie-Stowell at
midnight in November. Because of
deregulation, these $500 Trillion dollars worth(less) of Derivatives sold by
say, Bear-Stearns or Merrill-Lynch were even packaged and sold as bonds. Where was the SEC when this crime came
down? Well, they had butted out
because the “Free Market” and Deregulation ruled, thanks to the Republicans who
voted and signed into law bills that would circumvent the regulation that would
have served to protect us from such colossal scams. These abominations of the securities business, these “bookie
bets” on interest rates, passed off by Merrill and other icons in the
securities world, as genuine bonds (do you love it?) are staggering. And they are spread all over the world
so that prosecuting the crooks, the real offenders of the public trust, might
be harder to accomplish than getting many Americans to first understand what
habeas corpus is, and to second, give a sh-- about
preserving it. I know, I know; I
am a wreck. I guess the shock of
losing our freedoms back during the reign of Bush II is too much. How could it have happened in
America? How could we give up
habeas corpus, being wiretapped without a court order, and have become a nation
that broke all the Geneva Convention Articles we signed as a nation to never,
never torture? How do we proceed
as the nation wades out into these new dark waters? What should Barack Obama and the new Congress do as jobs
fall like flies?
It
appears like we are big on putting Band Aides on GM and Ford and Chrysler. The
Big Three could have planned ahead, and now we would be driving totally
effective Electric Cars or at least Plug In Hybrids. The former would travel 150 miles or more on one charge, stop
for a quick charge of 15 minutes (at a cost of $1.50 total) and be on its merry
way, thank you Bandar Bush and Exxon for caring. The other Plug-In Hybrid would run the first 50 miles on
electric power only. That would
solve the in-town errand- running needs in our lives, but if you ran out of
juice, the hybrid gasoline motor would kick in and get you home. The Plug-Ins are rated at over 100
miles per gallon. The American
automakers could have done all this, and we would be in tall cotton, adding jobs,
not just here at home, but all over the world. And don’t tell us we don’t have the technology. From 1996 to 1999 GM made 2,234 of
these EV1 cars,
leased them for several years to Californians who fell in love with them and
wanted to buy them, but no. To the dismay of those who leased the electric
cars, GM recalled the vehicles and crushed them. We had the technology to make it work, but we did not pay
attention to other rising industrial nations who now are producing electric and
plug-in hybrids for world markets.
Instead
of looking to bail out AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and all the other
financial institutions that have gone up in smoke we should be directing our
attention on producing solar power for all our needs and the rest of the
world. “Scientific American”
magazine reported earlier this year, that by 2050 the United States has the
ability to power the world with alternative forms of energy. As openers, the Southwest desert has
many days of sunshine during the year. With little expense of land preparation, the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona,
and California could be the collection plate of thousands of square miles of
mirrors that rotate slowly to follow the sun each day. The heat collected would be focused on
long pipes of liquid that, when heated, would make steam which could then drive
electric turbines. The electric
power would then be sent directly to the grid or to storage batteries or any
number of win-win modes of storage. Some have said that the batteries are not good enough. Somehow an old family saying, comes to
mind: “Don’t mind the mules, son; just load the wagon.” In other words, if you build it, the
technology will be be invented to meet the needs of new discovery. Spain and Germany have proven that windmill-generated
electricity is viable. They got
the jump on us. With their new
hardware and technology now they supply over 2/3 of the windmill energy generated
in the United States, alone.
If we could become energy-independent and supply
the world with all the energy the planet can consume by 2050, one thing is
certain: we would prosper, and so
would the rest of the world. Our
national debt of over $10 Trillion dollars would disappear and turn into a
surplus. Our dollar would be
strong, and jobs for Americans would flourish both here and abroad. But we are nervously trying to shore up
GM, Ford, Chrysler, and the housing markets all at the same time. The wanton destruction of much of what
makes us a strong nation financially has been the price we paid for sailing the
black waters with outdated charts and maps. We do what is familiar in these black waters left in the
wake of George W. Bush and his (un)kind. We need new charts and maps. We got the technology. And the will. “Here There Be Tygers”
would seem amusing and laughable once we get on the right track and on a new
winning course. We need to forget
about debt instruments as a tool of making the rich richer and the middle class
and poor have to walk away from their homes. We need to focus on the technology that we already have to
innovate and create instead of destroy and play financial shell games with the
citizens of America and the world. We can do it. And we
must. We have no choice in these
new black waters we find ourselves in. Then maybe we can say, “Yes We Can.” 