Reindustrialize
Last night before I passed out, after watching the election results, the wife told me about a story she heard on NPR. In it, Eric Janszen, a former Venture Capitalist, talked about how we can re-industrialize the US.
His theme was something I feel like I already knew deep down, but could not quite put into words. Our economy right now is focused too heavily on FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate), and we need to shift some of that investment to other areas; mainly ones that focus on making our workers more efficient.
Janszen mentioned that clean energy, telecommunications, and physical infrastructure are areas our government should focus on to help get the economy going again. Imagine if George W had taken $150 billion and built wind turbines throughout the country instead of sending everyone a check for $600 that they spent at Best Buy? Imagine if the government would spend a big chunk of the current bailout package on providing a nationwide wireless internet (maybe Wimax?) instead of giving the unallocated funds to banks and car manufacturers?
As the wife said, I hope someone is whispering these things in Obama’s ear right now.
Check out the replay on NPR here.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
i’m glad to hear the wife is listening to npr, since she grew up on limbaugh.
i love npr.