It seems like a great idea that Red States (those who voted for McCain and/or against the stimulus bill) should not accept the Federal Government’s stimulus money.  Bobby Jindal from Louisiana has already suggested he might turn it down.  I think that is a great idea.  Sarah Palin in Alaska should do the same thing  — it would fit perfectly with what good old Sarah believes.   All of those Red States where Republicans voted against the stimulus should turn down all the money.  That includes Utah, Texas, Alabama, Arizona, the rest of the South, and others.

Come on, red states, turn it down.  Just think of how many people might leave your state if you turn it down.  In fact, those will be exactly the people Republicans want to leave — democrats.  Then, red states will have an even purer red state.  What a great idea for those red states.

Not only will turning down the stimulus money fit right into the Red State Republican ideology, it will leave more money for the Blue States.    In fact, this could be a wonderful precedent for the future.  If you don’t like the Federal Government spending money, then just don’t take it.  I love it.

America is doomed.

Today, the Fed declares that the short term is horrible and the long term is good.  The only prediction to even consider is the short term.  There is no such thing as a long term forecast other than to say “in the long term we will be dead.”  Certainly, do not make decisions based on a rosy long term forecast because between now and that long term forecast many things will happen that cannot possibly be in the forecast.  The forecast will be incrementally updated and for each update consider only the short term forecast.

For example, last year the Fed was saving that the second half of 2009 would be good.  Now, they are saying not so good.  Today, they are saying 2010 will be good.  Let’s just wait and see what they say in January, 2010.

Everything is in free fall even if it is in slow-motion.  Lots of talk about stopping foreclosures by reducing payments to 31% of income.  Well, this doesn’t work for the people who have lost jobs and there are going to be many more job losses going forward.  These job losses are going to happen because companies want to maximize profits and care little about preserving jobs.

America is doomed.

Only people who can pay cash or have an unquestionably secure income stream should buy houses.    Everybody else should rent and live as cheaply as possible.  Those same people should advocate for rent control housing and safety nets to prevent being evicted if they lose their jobs and income.

Calling owning a house the American dream is nonsense because this dream is only possible with stable income.  For many decades people were employed by companies and could reasonably work at the company for life.  In this environment they could take out a loan and have a reasonable assurance the loan could be paid off.  This is not the case any longer.  Few jobs are secure.  Ask the 20,000 California state workers who will likely be laid off in the next few weeks.  Ask the millions who have lost jobs in the last six months.

America is doomed.

The honeymoon is over for Obama and the results are disappointing.  Obama is trying so hard to be bipartisan that he is neglecting the people who elected him.  People voted for real change, not just a more polite person with the same bankrupt policies.   Obama is still favoring the rich and neglecting ordinary Americans.    Where is the universal health care?  Where is the reduction in troops?  Instead, Obama’s first military decision was one that Bush would have made: 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan.  Where is the laws to help workers unionize?  Hopefully, Obama will understand that he is being duped by Republicans and start to act like the person that a majority of voters elected.

My suggestion is for Obama to forget about the Republicans.  Make the Republicans filibusterer anything they don’t like in the Senate.  Americans will understand exactly what the problem is.   Stop placating to the Republicans who will always privilege the rich and special interests over ordinary Americans and humanity.  Forget the stock market — let is crash.  Increase taxes on the rich.  Nationalize the banks and autos and anything else that needs government help. Default on the national debt.  Create jobs and put people back to work at nationalized, non-profit companies.  When people work they pay taxes.  Continuing with these same bankrupt policies will lead to destruction and blood in the street.

America is doomed.

Many of the job losses in this economic crisis will not be coming back, ever.   America in 2009 is very different than America at any other time.  Technology has matured to such a point that many jobs that previously were done by people are being done by computers or fewer people.   Just a handful of humans can run a web site that use to be dozens, if not hundreds, of retail stores employing many people at each store.  The complexity of maintaining those stores required even more people.  Yet, today this can all be replaced with a web site, distribution center, and delivery services (like UPS, Fed Ex, or the US Postal Service).   Those jobs are never coming back.

So … maybe those retail jobs were not any good anyway.  Likewise, for banking with ATMs and online banking replacing thousands of bank tellers and loan officers.  Those jobs weren’t good either.   Likewise for office workers who are being replace with email, databases, and web sites.  There are many examples.

So … how about high tech jobs?

Today, with free software there are literally hundreds of thousands of people working for free developing software and giving it away for nothing.   Software engineers haven’t even been around very long — 40 years is a stretch.   But, today, much fewer numbers of software engineers are needed.  Plus, it can be done from anywhere, like India where salaries are much lower.   So, most of those job losses are not coming back either.

Music industry has been decimated.  Likewise, for newspapers and magazines.  Same will happen with TV and movies.  Actors are cheap, really cheap these days.

Manufacturing has been sent overseas for decades.  In fact, the U.S. has an uninterrupted downtrend in the number of people employed in manufacturing since the 1950s, not even accounting for the increases in population.    Even family farms have been replaced with large corporate owners.

Jobs which require lots of education are available but students will come out of school with large debt.  Nonetheless, this is the area people should pursue.  However, there can still be problems.   For example, stem cell research is an up and coming field, but because U.S. policies many of these jobs are being done in places like Singapore which is more enlightened as the U.S. lets the crazy religious people cause stem cell research to be off limits.  Even if Obama reverses this, many of these jobs will never come back to America because they know that Republicans could just reverse it all in the future.

America Universities are great and are educating hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.  However, there is a glut in the number of people who want to teach in Universities.  Just how many places can a Ph.D in History work?  Community colleges are cheap and are educating many Americans but they are so dumb down that the education at these colleges is dubious in many cases.  Important programs, like Nursing, are so impacted that it takes years to get into those programs.  State budget problems will likely make the problem even worse in the future.

People need to just think about jobs in their career area and identify how technology is eliminating jobs.

America is doomed.