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Posted by Sirwrksalot October 9, 2008 at 11:19 a.m.

Economic and Environmental Change needed

          I understand there are steps needing to be taken to assist the economy back to a healthy state.  However I STRONGLY disagree with the way it is going.  Our country can not afford to buy bad debt from financial companies.  If we purchase these bad debt items then we have to hire people to value them, and care-take them, advertise them, then sell them.  It will be a HUGE undertaking.   Compare this to what happened with the Savings and Loan scandal in the 80's.  The government had to create a company with approximately 120,000 staff members just to handle the bad assists.  Consider the cost in this and where the money will come from.  The 700 Billion we are going to use the government dose not have they are going to sell IOU's to get it.  Other countries have been purchasing these IOU's over the last 7 years.  So a large part of our national debt is owned by another country, China to be specific is holding a large number of them at the moment.          This time if we focus on the bad assist purchase it will be hugely more complex and very easy to mismanage when compared to the Savings and Loan problem.  That problem took years to clear up, not a quick fix.  The people the Treasury Department are advertising for positions to handle these assists are the same people who own some of these bad debts and crated the problem to began with.  There potentially is or will be a conflict of interest in maximizing their own profit at our, the tax payers, determent.           If we rather purchased stock in the company we still infuse money into the company.  We have them continue with the care and management of the property or asset.  They already have this process in place.  We also have a vested interest in the operation or direction the company goes.  An example would be AIG they took the governments money and went on vacation now the crisis is over for them...we really have no say in it since we do not have voting shares in it.          One example comparison would be the country Sweden during the '80's had a similar problem and see how they were able to fix the situation to the tax payer's benefit.  Look at the United Kingdom/Britain to see they are doing the a similar rescue by purchasing shares instead of debt...If we bought shares then we can recoup the money as a tax payer down the road we as a tax payer would have a vested interest in seeing companies prosper returning the money back to the tax payer with having to pay less tax down the road if the investment gains returns back to the government.           We also can no longer ignore the environment.  It is failing.  We need to look beyond the fossil fuels and look at clean renewable energy.  It is not a lets look for fun.  It is a lets get out from under the thumb of oil producers, and oil sales companies.  We must realize this product is not renewable once it is used it is gone forever.  We need to take a serious look at finding alternate energy sources.  Look at what is happening with the glaciers and in the Alaskan environment.  The Polar Ice Caps are melting.  Not just melting some but in huge amounts.  The permafrost which is usually frozen year round is melting.  The polar bears are dying out.  The glaciers are going to be gone in less than 20 years at the rate they are melting.  We need to take drastic steps to change what we are doing.  More drilling and more oil production will only help for a short time.  It will also hasten the end of available supplies.  We need to hugely invest in improvements in what we use and how it is used for energy production...and transportation power, such for cars, buses, trucks, etc...We need to get involved: Thanks for reading I hope you are able to work on finding solutions to these issues...to do that you need to contact your political members and tell them your views and voice your concerns.  The freedoms we have are not free, it costs our effort:we need to participate or we may loose some of these freedoms.vice_president@whitehouse.gov, comments@whitehouse.gov,dcfo@do.treas.gov,info@barackobama.com,ecampaign@johnmccain.comsam_brownback@enews.senate.gov