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elderly from a declining stock market as things shake out. How about
taking care of this, with rough justice, through a supplement to Social
Security? If you need a revenue source, impose a turnover tax on
stocks.
Next, let's think about what the next upswing should try to achieve and
how it should be powered. If the 1960s were about raising baby boomers
and the '90s about technology, what should the '10s and '20s be about?
It's obvious: energy and climate change. That's where the present great
unmet needs are.
So, let's use the next few years to plan, mapping out a program of
energy conservation, reconstruction and renewable power. Let's get the
public sector and the universities working on it. And let's prepare the
private sector so that when the credit crunch finally ends, we'll have
the firms, the labs, the standards and the talent in place, ready to
go.
Some will ask if we can afford it. To see the answer, don't look at
budget projections. Just look at interest rates. Last week, in the
panic, the federal government could fund itself, short term, for free.
It could have raised money for 30 years and paid less than 4 percent.
That's far less than it cost back in 2000.
No country in this situation is broke, or insolvent, or even in much
trouble. For once, Wall Street's own markets speak the truth. The
financially challenged customer isn't Uncle Sam. He's up on Wall
Street, where deregulation, greed and fraud ran wild.
James K. Galbraith is the author of "The Predator State: How
Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too."
(finish)
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