What would 200 nuclear plants and a whole bunch of elevated towers do for America? How about eliminating dependence on foreign oil for starters? Add elimination of the trade deficit and throw in a huge manufacturing stimulus and those are just the beginning.
What I am talking about is the same thing I’ve been pushing for 20 years but now a few people may actually be listening. All we need to do to get our country back under control is to string a bunch of high speed, elevated trains over the interstate highways. We already have the technology and we already own the land. Power the system with some environmentally friendly nuke stations and we have an easy solution to nearly all of our major problems.
I can see a network of electric trains moving at tremendous speed connecting all of our major cities with feeder lines connecting smaller towns along the way. I can see a series of electric busses and transport vehicles moving people and goods throughout our cities. I can see us building this complete transportation network in 10 years with benefits starting immediately and gobs of money in the treasury to address our social problems.
Benefits? Let’s start with a 75% reduction in diesel fuel usage. Add nearly the same reduction in aviation fuel usage then top it off with a 50% reduction in automobile fuel. This eliminates ALL oil importation. Throw in a reduction of money sent to Japan for their vehicles (a few $million every day) and the trade deficit becomes an overnight surplus. Now compute the advantages of cheap plentiful transportation for manufacturers and you suddenly have a very big incentive to relocate plants in the US with all of the associated benefits. Put in an incredible strengthening of the dollar and you have the tip of the iceberg.
How do we implement this? We push the political people until they think it is their idea. We unite for a “Hero” project like the Interstate Highway System. We talk about it until everyone sees the plan for what it is – a simple solution to almost all of our current problems. Then we just do it.
Geo.
Tags: balance of trade, deficit, Oil, weak dollar
