Mr/Mme President, what are your top three goals?

[Phi for All]

Due to an extremely clever viral video, your name gets written in on enough ballots to win the US presidency ( I know!). It was a total fluke, but now you're in and The People realize they know nothing about your plans for your administration (if you're ineligible for the US presidency, assume the same scenario but you're the Chief of Staff for the new president and are actually the "power behind the throne").

 

Congress is going to be very difficult for you to work with. However, you do have enough political capital (because of the way you were elected) to get three major goals accomplished in the four years you've got.

 

These are serious goals, please. There may be many other things you can try to accomplish, but these three are practically guaranteed to happen. Choose from Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, Foreign Policy, Health Care, National Security, Political Reform, Social Security, Taxes or something else you feel needs changing.

 

How would you invest the political capital you have? What would your goals be, in 1-2-3 order?

[iNow]

I probably need to refine these, and ensure I'm not missing something silly or contradicting myself anywhere, but off the top of my head:

 

1) Another stimulus, but one more focused on green energy transformation and supplemented by monetary policy like quantitative easing, temporarily higher inflation targets, and broad reductions in principle for underwater mortgages

 

2) Implementation of strong regulations in banking and super fast algorithmic flash trading in the markets, laws that put real enforceable caps on campaign finance that truly stops the ability to simply purchase an election, anti-lobbying efforts to clean-out the ability to buy legislation, and truth in advertising laws that have teeth

 

3) Drastically reduce the focus of military spend and redirect those funds almost solely to education and healthcare for all citizens (which would have the downstream benefit of freeing us up to completely rework tax policy in local districts and on properties)

[waitforufo]

1) free bubble up

2) rainbow stew

3) big rock candy mountains

[iNow]

^WTF?

[Phi for All]

^WTF?

I think it was an attempt to make the question look stupid that backfired on the person who answered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I wrote, "These are serious goals, please", I was worried someone would post a thread-killer like that, and then I wondered if writing that would actually attract someone to do it. I should have left it alone.

 

Thanks for the serious reply, iNow. Very much what I was hoping for. If no one else responds, you get my write-in vote.

[iNow]

I think the hardest part is limiting it to just three. There is so much broken which needs fixing that distilling it down in a reasonable manner presents enormous challenge.

 

I'd really be curious to hear how other members, including those outside the US, might respond. I think we can leave aside the need for an individual to be a natural born citizen for purposes of this thought exercise.

[Essay]

I'm not sure tweaking the levers of our unsustainable economy, in the hope of fixing it, won't only be prolonging the inevitable. Someone will eventually point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

 

So I'd try reorganizing the executive departments to shift the overall momentum.

 

I've long focused on the 4 E's --Economy, Energy, Education, & Environment-- and usually add Health/healthcare into the mix. However a more holistic, if not more convenient, perspective starts with Health as the main theme and then incorporates the 4 E's by focusing onto three dimensions.

 

1. Personal Health

2. Socio-economic Health

3. Planetary Health

 

Seems to me that if we focused on the science and responsibility of the personal and planetary, and if we worked to establish and realize the value of personal and planetary health, then our socio-economic health would improve and remain more durable and resilient.

 

So First ...reform education to improve health trajectories:

Education could be focused on improving health, instead of improving wealth. With that "health" goal in mind, I'd make education (about health sciences, especially diet and nutrition) central to enrollment in universal health care (based on minimum needs for public health), and link extra benefits proportionally to the effort one makes to take care of themselves and/or the responsibility they take by contributing to society's future health.

This would greatly reduce future healthcare costs, hopefully preventing the looming--which will double total Medicare spending--diabetes epidemic.

 

Second ...reform tax structure/system to improve socio-economic trajectories:

Education about planetary health, the physical sciences, would be the basis for understanding the carbon cycle and the need to establish a value for carbon (yes, a carbon tax on the oxidation of fossil carbon--but along with a carbon credit for building the carbon richness of soil via atmospheric CO2 reduction). Accounting for the "hidden" costs of our energy subsidized, consumption- and entertainment-based economy should help shift socio-economic patterns into a more sustainable production- and health-based economy.

 

The carbon cycle, which is a basis for understanding the ecosystem services that provide our food, needs to also be the basis for understanding and improving the management of our valued resources (economy). This would develop technologies and industries that should be in high demand for export as climate change intensifies.

 

Third ...reform Social Security to improve society's (and civilization's) trajectories:

Education about history, and the social sciences and humanities in general, will help improve social and economic health. I'd reform social security to cover a basic minimum (needed for public health and security), and then link extra benefits proportionally to the efforts and contributions one makes while doing work and/or in a career furthering the previous two goals--such as helping restore ecosystem services and/or growing more, healthier and eco-friendly foods--building a healthy population and planet and civilization.

This should build an enduring base of non-outsourceable jobs, careers, and industries that would be locally regulated, rewarded, and reinforced.

 

===

Nothing has to be mandatory, but if you want something other than your own self-funded healthcare and retirement plans, then you need to take responsibility and participate in ensuring a strong future for society. We should still be free to pursue the icing, but only after helping to make a good cake.

 

===

Oh, and abolish the Dept. of Homeland Security, the largest increase in government growth and spending since WWII, and the largest excuse for taxing, control, and the inevitable creation of a 1984-style police state ever. The drones are coming! Governments used to inspire us with talk about the lofty pursuit of dreams, but now they work to justify everything as the necessary protection from nightmares. We should refocus on healthy dreams.

 

~

[iNow]

2) Implementation of strong regulations in banking and super fast algorithmic flash trading in the markets...

This thread's been somewhat quiet, so I thought I'd come back and add some clarity to the above point by sharing the below.

 

 

 

http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/felix-salmon-curb-high-frequency-trading-and-end-stock-market-war-zone

 

When Felix Salmon looks at the global equities market he sees a world of free-for-all electronic warfare that likely would be more recognizable to Isaac Asimov than Milton Friedman.

 

“The stock market today is a war zone, where algobots fight each other over pennies, millions of times a second,” Salmon writes in his recent column for Reuters and BuzzFeed. It’s an especially timely point in the wake of the Knight Capital fiasco.

 

Salmon’s point is based on this animated image, which shows the amount of high-frequency trading in the stock market between January 2007 and January 2012:

 

 

 

The idea here is that we put a financial transaction tax in place to mitigate the HUGE long-term risk such high frequency trading creates. In short, we make it so performing millions of trades for a few pennies per second is no longer such an attractive approach, but instead get back to what the market was intended for... Investing in companies that will change the world and make us wealthy along the way.

 

(note: the image is animated... be sure to click the link I shared if it doesn't render for you properly here within the quote)

[ydoaPs]

1) Education

2) Cut tax loopholes for the super rich

3) Universal healthcare

4) [cheating, yes, I know] Cut the scope and recruitment quota for the military to help pay for 1 and 3

 

I think the hardest part is limiting it to just three. There is so much broken which needs fixing that distilling it down in a reasonable manner presents enormous challenge.

 

Indeed

[CaptainPanic]

1. Drastically regulate the financial sector. They're gambling with our money. Give them two years to untangle the mess they have created. By the end of that period, every dollar on every account must stand for something in the physical real world. Everything dollar that does not will be declared invalid and will cease to exist. Blood will flow in the financial sector, but this way hopefully it will only be in the financial sector. Further regulation regarding mergers and splitting up companies should slow down the pace at which this is happening. Aim is to reduce the workforce in the financial sector significantly, and make it a service sector again, instead of a parasitic sector.

 

2. Change the regressive tax to a progressive tax. The higher your income, the larger the percentage of tax you pay. Reduce corporate tax in general, but increase tax on profits and dividend.

 

3. Transfer at least 50% of the military budget to large infrastructure projects (highways and railroads need a major overhaul), but also some to science, education and spaceflight. Obviously, troops will be brought home. All federal/state expenses to private security companies like former Blackwater, etc. immediately cease. All employees from those companies who lose their job as a result can join the army as a regular soldier/sailor or pilot if they qualify - with the same payment as the regular troops. No troops will be made redundant, but there will be an immediate stop in recruitment, which will last until the number of troops is reduced to deal with the lower budget. Troops whose contracts are not renewed are expected to find jobs easily in construction as a result of increased spending. People working to develop weapons can find jobs in spaceflight projects.

 

[disclaimer] I'm a Dutchman - I might lack knowledge about certain things in the USA. This is what I'd do though.