Son of Stimulus

Floating out there around the 15 million unemployed like a malevolent fog are the chattering voices of the political class ruminating over the need for another stimulus. The unemployed (and the employed) have a reason to be a bit anxious about this talk; the first $787 billion, passed with great fanfare in January, has done nothing for employment, unless you count those happy few working at Congressman John Murtha's Airport in Nowhere.

I know, I know, I am now expected to deride Big Government spending and corruption. However, the idea of 15 million of my fellow citizens out of work appalls me, and I think it is time to do something about it.

A $1 trillion stimulus? That's for pantywaists. We need much more than that, much more than the government - even one as big as the United States - can possibly spend. Where are we going to find such huge sums of money as we need? Well, the entire global economy is about $60 trillion. If we could just get 23% of the global economy, $14 trillion worth, to invest just a third of that money into America and American jobs, that would be almost $5 trillion right there.

How can we attract this money? Through a massive Public-Private partnership between the U.S. and the world. Our fearless leaders need to declare America a world "Jobs Zone," and slash regulations and other disincentives to entry into the American market. Free up our oil fields for drilling; super-streamline the approval process for nuclear power plants; fast-track new oil refineries; and rationalize our politicized securities regulation to attract venture capital and new IPO's, and reestablish America as the corporate capital of the world. Oh, and while we're at it, adopt a "strong dollar" approach at the Federal Reserve, to assure the world's capital that investing in America is not the same as investing in Zimbabwe. What will flow will be jobs, jobs and more jobs.

What, you don't think this will attract the world's capital to American shores? Well, since America's economy itself is 23% of the world's economy, that's really not important. America herself can fund all of this and more.

And the beauty of it all is that not one of the things I have mentioned - not one! - will involve the public expenditure of money by government. In fact, drilling for oil will produce massive additional revenues for cash strapped government of all levels, Federal and State, as will the new taxes being paid by all the formerly unemployed.

Jobs, jobs and more jobs, with no deficits! What a concept!