Doug fixes the US economy

The US needs to shift its focus from Wall Street to the mean streets of American where the US Census Bureau estimates that  16 % of the US population lives at or below the poverty line and has them daily looking over their own personal financial cliff.  There life is a day to day proposition, praying for good health because of lack of health insurance and savings makes ill health a potential game ender. Welcome to what might be considered a new expanding third world.

The Dow is up but the economy is still in the doldrums so maybe further proof we need to something to boost the lower levels of our population out of poverty.  Government needs to shift its focus from the upper end of earners and jointly with industry develop strategies to get these folks back into the game.  Maybe through developing low tech cottage industries in underdeveloped areas such as textiles, or outsourcing for components in manufactured products, maybe a neighbourhood based, co-op style low cost home building source.  Granted some of these endeavours  may not be financially self sustaining at first but though the use of government funding, looking past short term returns and concentrating on greater long term rewards, the potential benefits would be more cost effective and potentially offering  greater rewards to the overall economy than the present solution of unemployment payments.

So why is poverty reduction such a non starter? In the recent elections I can’t remember a mention of a comprehensive or for that matter a non-comprehensive plan to reach down and pull these folks up. Possibly the out of sight out of mind kind of thinking effects politicians as they don’t spend much time in these places and anyway there ain't no money there for campaign coffers down here.

Until our leadership can start thinking toward our nation’s future with creative solutions and by creative I don’t mean trying to create a new industry or just job retraining but rethinking our success of the past and using it to restart our industrial base.   Building a strong, self sustaining, economic future based on the production of goods and services and not on the financial transactions of Wall Street we will be mired in this economic mess.