Are you sleeping poorly these days because of worry about the national economy, its security and its economic longevity?
Well, here is a harmless sleeping pill with no side effects or fear of addiction. It promises to get you a coupla good nights sleep, maybe three or four, if you can accept three axioms which are:
Axiom 1: The Islamic threat to U.S. Security would moderate, evaporate or least become less of a threat if world revenue for oil decreased dramatically. (Or even threatened to decrease) Who knows what just the threat of Reagan’s Star Wars had on the decline of Russia’s communism, for example?
Axiom 2: The biggest threat to America’s continued economic dominance in the world appears to be (a.) inability to compete on high labor- intensive and low- tech items like clothes, shoes, parts and (b) a rise in the dollar’s value which hampers exports.
Axiom 3: One of the principal reasons the country has not been able to curb its appetite for Arab oil is that we have been partially encumbered by Detroit’s existing infrastructure, culture and mindset and our government’s hesitation to upset that status quo.
Now if you buy, even partially, into these three axioms you can begin to sleep better because the virtual collapse of Detroit culture (and infrastructure) provides America with a clean sheet of paper from which to build an alternative to gasoline driven transportation. It is an opportunity that has and will cost us deeply/ heavily, but it could also be THE opportunity to solve the problems of (a) Islam’s threat to economic security and (b) our economic malaise.
If America can invent an alternative engine (be it natural gas, hydrogen, battery, nuclear, whatever), ahead of the very clever world competitors, we can cash in on that advance handsomely for years. And by decreasing the world’s need for oil, we, not only would be selling our technical skills, but we would be cutting off a big source of Islam’s income.
The improved U.S. economic outlook should make the dollar more desirable worldwide thereby reducing our need to raise interest rates domestically, which not only should stimulate our domestic economy but restore the dollar to its former standards.
So everybody wins except for the people who hate us the most and we are their best customers, if you can believe that. (Also, we should be able to reduce military expenses---freeing up tax money for the social problems that also keep us awake at night)
Think about it and sleep peacefully, but don’t phone me at 4 in the morning because I’ll be thinking about how America’s political system went SO wrong to let us get into this situation in the first place. But that’s another blog.
