Sweet Orange » Pulitzer prize winning columnist http://www.sweetorangehousing.com Is the Orange County housing juice worth the squeeze? Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:37:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 en hourly 1 Our “I’ll-Be-Gone, You’ll-Be-Gone” Economy http://www.sweetorangehousing.com/2010/03/10/our-ill-be-gone-youll-be-gone-economy/ http://www.sweetorangehousing.com/2010/03/10/our-ill-be-gone-youll-be-gone-economy/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:41:32 +0000 Sylvia Walker http://www.sweetorangehousing.com/?p=12991 tom-froedamAccording to Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman, one of the main problems facing the U.S. is an “I’ll-Be-Gone, You’ll-Be-Gone” attitude about our economy–and the environment. For example, he states that we have been using the same unsustainable accounting practices for both: We have been underpricing risk, privatizing gains and socializing losses, and this is why Bear Stearns and the polar bear are becoming extinct at the same time.

As Friedman sees it, the root of this problem isn’t solely with current government policies:

We don’t just need better government, we need better citizens….We need to make leaders understand you can ask me to something hard.

Friedman see much of the anger at our current predicament as “unfocused” and an unwillingness to make a shift away from the familiar but unsustainable practices that have lead to the current difficulties. Friedman says we are following situational values instead of sustainable values.

Goldman has been the poster boy for banks behaving by “situational values” - exploiting whatever the situation, or rules that it helped to write, allowed.–NY Times News Service

Now brace yourself, because here is an example of the type of immediate change that he thinks we should be willing to make for the long-term benefit: A dollar gas tax.

Forty cents would go to deficit reduction, 40 cents to health care (which would also help to reduce the deficit), 10 cents to subsidize those who can’t afford health care, and 10 cents to those who have to drive long distances.

As Friedman sees it, these measures would help to reduce the deficit, improve the health of the dollar because we won’t be sending $250 billion overseas, and correct an energy policy that is currently empowering some of the most corrupt leaders in the world.

OK, I know that a gas tax is a third rail in politics, and I imagine some of you are muttering some unpleasant words just at the mention of a gas tax. But as Friedman sees it, we cannot continue with an economy based on the expectation of continuous withdrawals without deposits.

Here are some other solutions that Friedman thinks will help our economy:

  • Health care reform will allow us to compete globally.
  • Investment in energy technology will allow us to compete in the predominant job markets of the not-to-distance future.
  • Education in energy technology will allow us to build a better economy.

Sources:

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