The summer of anger in the US

Fark.com pointed me towards this article on why Americans are angry this summer. I think many of us were hoping that Obama would bring in sweeping changes for the better, but it's been mostly same-old same-old. There also seems to be a lot of crazy talk out there fueled by FOX "News" and the internet. Do people really believe the government has created death camps for dissenters? Don't people realize the government is one of the most inefficient organizations out there? How could they set up death camps without people knowing? How could they hold people hostage there since there is at least one license gun for every American?

I think one problem is that Americans feel increasingly out of touch with government. We're fighting two unnecessary wars, our economy sucks and we have a hard time learning the truth due to ambiguous statements and outright lies. Whatever happened to government by the people? Why is the government trying to hastily push through stop-gap measures? The real cause of the financial meltdown was self-regulation. The financial regulatory power in the US is pretty puny. Do you trust Lehman Brothers to self-regulate? These guys diced up and packaged bad loans as good ones because there wasn't anyone to stop them. I'm a big supporter in the free market, but I want the playing field level, honest and transparent. We need government to regulate because big business can't be trusted. Businesses' primary mandate is to increase shareholder value. You don't do that by installing expensive pollution controls or by paying fair wages. If we're not careful, we'll end up back in the feudal days.

What we really need to do is to take a step back and take a deep breath. Let the anger and hate flow out to clear our minds to properly focus on the issues. The economy sucks because no one is buying anything. No one is buying anything because people are worried about being out of work. Everything is spiraling down so the government needs to step in and strategically spend money. That doesn't mean throw money at the problem or at businesses because they may just pocket the money *cough* AIG *cough*. The government needs some public works projects. Those help employ people and improve the standard of living. It's about time that we start focusing on improving living conditions rather than focusing on growth. Why does the economy need to grow? Wouldn't it be better if everyone had enough food and shelter?

I think the government should work on installing fiber optic cable around the country that it can lease out to the telecoms. I know they already strung a lot of fiber, but only to dense population areas. Don't people in Wyoming or South Dakota deserve true broadband internet? I also think the government should fix crumbling roads and bridges. Lastly, the government should encourage adoption of alternative energy sources by providing massive tax deductions. People are only slowly adopting solar panels and windmills because the capital investment is high. The capital investment is high because the volume is low. Something is necessary to break the cycle and that would be tax deductions.

At the same time, I would reduce or eliminate income-based taxes and increase consumption-based taxes. You should only be taxed when you consume a resource rather than just by earning money which is essentially virtual. Maybe a national sales tax on everything but food would work.