2008/12/07

Jobs for GD2

It seems that president-elect Obama wants to pump up the economy with keep busy jobs (like changing light bulbs).

As a libertarian, I say that less is more and government should stay out of the economy (other than cutting spending and taxes: less intervention is better).

However, some commentator at CR pointed out the too many have negatives and contribute no positive way out of this economic downturn. Well, here are some of my thoughts:

1) Allow people to farm at home. There are people who do quite well on a regular plot of land (e.g., Dervaes family farms about 3 tons (6,000 pounds) of food on 1/10 acre of "farm land" in Pasadena, CA not too far from downtown L.A.). This means getting rid of dumb laws like you must have green lawn in your front yard. For those who don't own a land with dirt (renters and condo owners), why not open up unused land like city parks and allow people to farm there? Also encourage the youths to help their neighbors who are elderly or disabled.

2) Harvest rain water. By collecting rain, you can save lots of money. And helps the environment too (need to take less water from the source, like what we do in California: piping it from North to South).

3) Free energy regulations so that small generators can grow (be it natural gas based or mini windmill or solar or geothermal or whatnot). Too much regulation hampers innovation (most safety regulations are a joke: why do so many people die even after FDA approval of drugs?) and prevents small inventors from creating and selling products to local home owners (or even renters). (I bet there are tons regarding electrical generators as well as how the power can be used/transmitted -- I mean if one person wants to "sell" to his neighbors, I bet he would be shut down by electric regulators.)

4) Free communications (i.e., deregulate FCC). Allow people to create neighborhood wireless internet system. Why should big companies get monopolies?

5) Deregulate vehicle rules. Too much rules make it hard for inventors to innovate new propulsion technology for cars (or other alternative vehicles). I can't believe that even biodeisels are taxed/regulated (I heard of a case where one can't process used oil and pour into your diesel engine without paying taxes).

Just as we had a lot of technological process without government interference, a lot of innovation can happen as soon as government gets out of the way. Now that Great Depression 2 is upon us, we should allow small guys have more freedom to explore and allow them to innovate out of this economic downturn. What we don't need are more bridge to nowhere and other boondongle projects.

Copyright 2008, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

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