A Path To Our Republic's Future - Learning To Pull As One

We were taught, and we taught our children, that individualism is the highest form of freedom, but we failed to learn the lessons that our parents and grandparents learned from the Great Depression and two World Wars, times that brought the republic together through national service, much of which was in the military.

We've forgotten that the infrastructural backbone of our nation was built in part by the CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps. The Corps built roads where none previously existed, bridges that span our nation's waterways and chasms, and the built-to-last structures we see in our National Parks and National Forests. Along the way, people learned trades that served them well the rest of their lives, they helped build the engine which powered America's greatest growth boom, and they often made friends for life serving alongside their fellows. They learned to pull together rather than pull apart.

I envision a modern CCC wherein every able-bodied citizen - and I consider many who are deemed 'disabled' to be able to help as they may - serves 1-2 years depending on job skills and possibly the ability to "re-enlist" for 1 term of 1-2 years, all of whom help our republic recover from the deeply-damaging Great Recession. I see Conservants help to rebuild our parks, roads, and bridges, and help lay a network of fiber optic trunks and dark fiber that will continue to serve us long into the future. I see them helping lay tens of thousands of miles of underground power cable, bringing electricity from the great wind farms of the Midwest and West to our cities and rural areas not capable of generating enough wind energy to meet their own needs. I see them building solar collection farms. I see them helping to clean up toxic waste dumps. I see Conservants laying the bricks and mortar on new government buildings built in a grand fashion to last rather than the brick-facade, steel building, temporary structures we now see. These would be monuments to the CCC's past and future accomplishments, built in a manner that will allow them to be flexible for future remodeling and which will stand to remind us that universal service is a boon for our society.

We see the path that crass commercialism, rampant runaway capitalism, and mass consumption has taken us down, all of what we've wrought being the result of individualism. A new CCC would again show us what the value of teamwork can accomplish. It would show us that it's far better to get to know our neighbors than to remain fearful of them through our ignorance. And a new CCC would elevate our republic back to the top spot among nations, not through idle boast, but through the quiet acknowledgement that comes from one's peers at a job well done. We would again achieve a status worth emulation rather than revulsion, and would do so by means of care and tender concern for that we love rather than ugly show of force abroad.

Our republic still reels under the staggering weight of the Great Recession, an economic kill switch on our future unless we rewire our way of thinking. We need a boost from within rather than a loan from without. The time has come for us to return to a program whose grand achievements still stand as reminders of what we can do when we pull as one.

The Idiocy of Cutting Spending During a Recession

I've been trying to find a way to convey the idiocy of cutting government spending during a recession. I hope this helps.

First, it's important to understand the effects of a recession. The worst symptom of a recession is a lack of money. Does that mean that the money doesn't exist somewhere? No. It exists, it's just not in circulation, and if it's not in circulation, people can't get it either by earning or borrowing it. If people can't get money, they can't spend money, and since that money that they spend goes into the paychecks of the guy at the gas station, the lady at the grocery store, and the folks who build houses, then they also have no money. Now stretch that example out far enough, covering the thousands of types of jobs, and make it cover the entire country. That's recession; no flowing money.

So, let's use water as our example. Most cities have large tanks either up on big supports looking like some sort of steel monster (or painted to look like a piece of fruit), or set on top of a hill. For the purpose of this demonstration, they're not tanks, they're banks. Imagine that the water those tanks hold isn't water, it's money. Water mains carry water to users the same way that investors invest money in job creators - employers. The smaller pipes represent employers who channel the money to their employees in return for time and effort put in by the employees.

Our water flows like this: Tanks > Water Mains > Smaller Pipes > Users

Our money flows like this: Banks* > Investors* > Employers > Employees

*This order may be reversed and often is.

Here I am at home and one day, I turn on the tap, but nothing comes out. There's water in the tanks. There's water in the mains. There's water in the pipes. But I can't get the water to flow.

This is recession.

The banks have money. Investors have money. The "tanks" are full, there's "water" in the "mains", but the "water" - money - isn't flowing. Why?

Fear. Sometimes fear mixed with greed.

In order for me to cook, bathe, clean, to use for sanitation, and water my garden and flowers, I need water. 

In order for me to eat, pay my mortgage or rent, pay for transportation, afford clothing, pay for the kids' necessities, I need money.

When water doesn't flow, we have a water shortage or drought.

When money doesn't flow, we have a money shortage or recession.

Money isn't flowing.

This is recession.

So, if the problem affecting being able to cook, bathe, clean, use for sanitation, and water my garden is a lack of water, or specifically, since we know there is water in the tank and in the mains, lack of movement of water, I need to get the water moving in order to fix the problem.

If the problem affecting being able to eat, pay my mortgage or rent, pay for transportation, afford clothing, pay for the kids' necessities is a lack of money, or specifically, since we know there is money in the bank and in the investors' pockets, lack of movement of money, I need to get the money flowing in order to fix the problem.

Here's the catch: Government can't make banks lend or investors spend or employers create jobs. Government can only make enough money available to them so that they feel safe enough - because there's an abundance of money - to let the money start flowing again and government does that by making more money available at very low interest rates to banks and investors who can then lend at low, but still profitable, interest rates to consumers - you and me. 

Making enough water available so that the valves are opened on the tanks and mains gets the water flowing to our homes.

Making enough money available so that loans are opened at banks and by investors gets the money flowing to our wallets, and from there back into the system to kickstart the system and make it work again. 

It's like using the shock paddles to resuscitate a person whose heart stops. It takes a bunch of new money - a shock - in the system to jolt it back to life. Only government has that much money, and that's why cutting back on spending during a recession only makes it worse, and never makes it better!

This is recession.