For the past year or so, I have been pushing a strategy that I developed to end voter suppression primarily in the Southern states. We have seen the gap between white participation and non-white participation in presidential elections widen since the Shelby v Holder decision in 2013. My strategy to end such discrimination is to create a large, deafening public uproar that forces state legislatures to revoke the voter suppression laws. How could we do this? We would promote a boycott by top-tier and highly-recruited athletes. They would refuse to attend universities and colleges in states with voter suppression laws. The University of Alabama’s football team is comprised of approximately 80% minority players. Imagine the outrage if historically highly-ranked football teams like Alabama, Auburn or Georgia fall to mediocracy because of their inability to attract top recruits to their schools or to keep established stars from leaving the school.
I recently saw in the news that you encouraged a similar boycott of universities and colleges in states that bar DEI programs taught in the public schools. I believe that it would be easy to address both the issues of voter suppression and barring DEI programs with the same boycott program. The boycott has the potential to bring about many changes in race relations.
I envision a small non-profit organization to promote the boycott. The first and foremost responsibility of this organization would be to get national awareness and recognition of the boycott. This would require enlisting a number of well-known national figures to support the boycott. This organization would then reach out to the high-profile athletes and provide the support and advice they would need to help them matriculate to a different college or university than they had originally intended.
I have reached out to top athletes, sportscasters, politicians, and religious leaders trying to bring a big-name personality to the cause. Unfortunately, I have not had any success up to this point. I would like to have the chance to talk to you and outline how my boycott could be implemented. I am in still in need of a big-name or a prominent politician to help give my program legitimacy. I was hoping you might be interested in working with me on this boycott and could provide a contact to others who might join in the fight.
I appreciate your attention to this proposal and look forward to hearing from you.
It is time to end voter suppression. All voting aged Americans must have access to the voting booth and all votes must be counted fairly.
I am proposing a very simple program that strongly encourages top-recruited minority athletes to boycott universities with high-profile sports programs in any state that has passed voter suppression laws. We will call this social program for justice, The Boycott. The University of Alabama has won six NCAA football championships since 2009. Their success obviously generates a lot of income for the school and the state, and has contributed to a collective civic pride throughout the state. However, since the Supreme Court overturned Shelby v. Holder in 2013, voter rolls have been purged and many polling placed closed in Alabama. How well would the university team do if a very large number of the 80%-minority football athletes chose to pursue their education at a different university? This year Alabama, Georgia, Texas, LSU and Oklahoma are all in the top 20 in the NCAA football polls. Imagine the pressure losing those players would put on state legislatures, as these teams sink to irrelevance in the NCAA Football rankings.
How do we get top athletes to participate in The Boycott? First, there needs to be an organization, named perhaps led by a well-known and respected and perhaps even somewhat controversial national sports figure who could draw immediate media attention to The Boycott. Imagine someone like Stephen A. Smith who has a wide audience on ESPN and has a knack for drawing attention to social causes. The program would also need several well-known and highly-respected sports figures to go on sports talk shows to bring further national attention to the movement. They would need to speak to highly-recruited high school seniors to help persuade them to attend schools in states that do not suppress the vote. I am thinking of stars like Steph Curry and LeBron James for the basketball recruits, and Deion Sanders, Lamar Jackson, and Jalen Hurts for the football recruits. These top professional athletes will also be essential in raising funds and possible scholarship money to help support these athletes and families as they may be attending colleges a little farther from home than their state university.
A recent rule change for NCAA athletes gives The Boycott an immediate shot in the arm. NCAA athletes at Division I schools no longer need to sit out a year when transferring schools. Therefore, all college athletes can now be approached, not just incoming freshmen. The threat of losing a sophomore All-American quarterback or a junior star running back or dynamic freshman wide receiver next season would put much more pressure on the school and thus the state legislatures than losing incoming freshmen alone. No roster will be secure with the possibility of players transferring next season.
I recently read that young women are staying away from universities in states that do not allow abortions. The Boycott is a similar moral and ethical social movement, but The Boycott creates enormous economic and social pressures on these universities and states to change these voter suppression laws quickly. Imagine if the number one college QB in the country, on the top ranked football team in the nation, suddenly announces he will be transferring to a new school because the state that he represents does not give him fair access to the voting booth. It would be devastating to a state to watch its team drop from number one in the NCAA football polls to 50th the next year. The only way to affect change, maybe, is to hit ‘em where it hurts. I say let The Boycott begin.
The Democratic Party just revised their 2024 primary schedule removing Iowa from the top spot and replacing it with South Carolina on February 3, 2024. I would guess that this is a reward to Jim Clyburn and South Carolina for giving Joe Biden a much needed primary victory in 2020 after three mediocre finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada in 2020.
Let’s face it…..South Carolina will be meaningless in the Presidential race in 2024 for the Democratic nominee. After winning this primary and gaining the momentum to secure the nomination in 2020, Biden lost South Carolina to Trump in the general election 55% to 43%. And so why do we believe that 2024 will be different and why put South Carolina first?
As we all have come to learn….there are Red States and Blue States and approximately a dozen or so Swing States. The presidential election is ultimately determined by which candidate can carry the majority of these dozen Swing States. However, both parties seem to miss this point in their primary process of selecting a candidate for the Fall contest. Both parties have similar primary schedules and systems, but for this essay I am only concerned about Democratic Party. And so we have primaries and a few caucuses in all 50 states and then we select the winner who has won the primaries in major Democratic states of New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and the other Democratic states like Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Now we just hope that this nominee will appeal to the voters in those 12 Swing States. This is ass backwards.
Let’s have a process that determines which candidate can win these Swing States. Let’s have the first primary date in early March consisting of the 5 states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. Let’s have the candidates spend a good part of 2023 and early 2024 traveling to these States so we can which candidate strikes a chord with the blue collar workers of this heavily industrialized region, which candidate can relate to the large minority populations in the big cities in these States and which candidate can relate to the small farmer and small business owners in these regions. The candidate that wins this primary might have a good chance of carrying these Swing States in the general election. The second primary in early April would consist of the 4 states…Florida, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. The candidate who wins this primary will obviously be a strong candidate with the growing Hispanic population in our country. The third primary in early May would be in the 3 states of Virginia, North Carolina and New Hampshire. The winner of this primary will have to appeal for the white collar worker and “suburban mom” that has become an important part of the Democratic base. Finally, on the first Tuesday in June, we have a real Super Tuesday with all other states holding their primary on that date.
You may say, what is the difference….all voters in all states cast their ballot and we are at the same place as our current system by the end of the primary season. This is NOT true. This primary schedule is set up to determine which candidate can win the Swing States. This is the key to winning the general election. The candidate that does not perform well early will likely lose support in later primaries as voters see their weakness in the Swing States.
With this system in place, Democrats should not be surprised the results of the Swing States and therefore, the outcome of the election.
The half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.5 billion years….half of a certain quantity of this radioactive element will decay in 4.5 billion years. Blueberries have an even longer shelf-life meaning you can buy blueberries, put them in the refrigerator and travel to Mars and when you return, they are just as fresh as the day you bought them.
This is not true with many other of our favorite fruits. How many times have you longed for a perfectly sweet and juicy peach during the hot days of summer? However, when you go to the market all the peaches are hard and need a few days to ripen. When you try to claim your prize, you find that the peaches have over-ripened and now are soggy globs. The same thing happens with plums. Bananas might give you a week or so from being green and firm before ripening and quickly turning into brown mush…not bad, but you still end up throwing out half the bunch in two weeks. We are all familiar with strawberries turning into a mold culture in your refrigerator. Not so with blueberries which are ready from the day you purchase them through the next millennium.
And blueberries are consistently tasty. They are delicious and taste exactly the same whether you buy them in July of January. Strawberries are totally hit or miss. It is possible to buy a basket of strawberries that have no taste at all. Watermelons which you can only purchase in summer, are delicious about 50% of the time and honeydews are only good if you are eating them in the tropics. Cantaloupes are good some of the time and have a very short season and they don’t make oranges the way they used to.
Blueberries have been treated as a second-class fruit in our diet. They don’t get the love of apples, peaches and oranges. They are very healthy as they are loaded with anti-oxidants. I just wanted to give blueberries their proper recognition and hope that you come to appreciate their reliability and consistency and make them a regular part of your meal planning.
Paid for by the Hammonton Blue Berry Growers Association.
How is this for a bipartisan slogan, “Yes we can…Whip Inflation Now!”
The potential for runaway inflation has been brewing for a few years now as the federal government handed out trillions of relief dollars to individuals and businesses during the two years of the pandemic. At the same time, the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the economy through its Quantitative Easing programs. The combination of these strategies has resulted in an additional $2 trillion in personal savings accounts that is creating excess demand just when inventories are depleted after the pandemic and supply chain issues have prevented these inventories from getting replenished. This is happening as gasoline prices surge due to the oil shortages brought on by the embargo of oil purchases from Russia.
The Democrats throw up their hands and claim that the confluence of these forces are out of their control……..a perfect storm of economic calamities. The country is looking for dramatic action and is not satisfied with the totally passive approach of letting the Federal Reserve slowly raise interest rates, promising only a economic slowdown, not a recession of a “soft landing” for our economy.
There are over 700 million barrels of oil stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for emergencies. Joe Biden announced on March 31 of 2022, that the US would release 1 million barrels per day for three months to help ease the oil shortage. That amount is obviously not enough and Biden should look to release much more oil to glut the market and force the price of oil back down to more normal levels due to this excess supply. Biden is scared of offending the oil companies (as they experience record profits). Biden should also immediately drop the federal tax on gasoline at the pumps. Although this is only about $.30 per gallon, it will still help offset these soaring gasoline prices.
Biden should immediately go to China and announce that the Trump 25% tariffs will be removed from goods shipped to the US. This ill-conceived tariff was supposed to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. Realistically, these tariffs increased the cost of goods from China by 25% (inflationary) while moving manufacturing jobs from China to India, or Vietnam or some other low cost manufacturing country. Biden has been scared to end these tariffs as he fears Right Wing backlash for working with China and being depicted as a weak in our dealing with China. While meeting in China, Biden should offer to supply China with our Covid vaccines which have proven to be much more effective against the virus than the Chinese vaccines. I am sure that supplying China with 2 to 3 billion vaccines should help promote new pharmaceutical jobs here in the USA. Biden might use the leverage of providing China with vaccines to promote trade of other US industries into the Chinese market tat previously have been blocked by Chinese import restrictions.
The invasion of Ukraine had a six-month build- up. Our intelligence kept telling us that Putin would invade Ukraine so we had six months or so to prepare for the imposition of sanctions which would include embargo on Russian oil. The world, mostly Europe, would need a new source for 5 million barrels of oil per day. However, this preparation never happened. Iran is the most logical country for this replacement source of oil to Europe. All efforts should have been to re-start the nuclear non proliferation negotiations and find a framework to get a new treaty going forward that would bring Iran back into the global community while providing an additional 4 million of barrels per day for European consumption. I believe that the Biden administration was again afraid of Right Wing backlash from dealing with Iran and has let this opportunity slip away. It is hard to believe that a deal could not have been worked out given that a new treaty would benefit both sides. There was a previous deal to provide a structure and current sanctions are hurting Iran while at the same time the West needs additional supplies of oil.
Venezuela has over 300 billion barrels of crude oil in reserves making it thenumber one country with oil reserves. In the mid 1990’s Venezuela produced over 3 million barrels of oil per day. Today, after nationalization and mismanagement, Venezuela is producing one tenth of that amount. The US should be negotiating with Venezuela on a plan to revitalize this moribund industry so that it can help to contribute significantly to the world shortage in oil production and help relieve the pain and the inflation that the oil shortage is causing. But, again I believe, that this administration is scared to confront the Republican 1980 mentality that states that communism is evil and that we should be doing everything possible to keep Venezuela isolated from the world market.
Finally, we need to reverse the Quantitative Easing that put trillions of new dollars into the economy as the Federal Reserve printed about $80 billion per month and bought bonds on the market over several years. It is now time to reverse this process and sell these bonds on the market offering high interest rates to take much of that $2 trillion out of personal savings.
So much of inflation is fueled by expectations……people will go out today and make purchases if they believe prices will be rising rapidly in the future. This increases current demand. We must establish policies that convince the public that prices are leveling off so that there is no need to immediately go out and purchase these good. This obviously reduces immediate demand. Our government can start right now.
Mark your calendars. May 28,2022.This is the day we start to fight back.
Approximately 70% of this country supports a woman’s right to an abortion. A number as high as 70% must include Democrats, Republicans and independents. There is no way a ruling reflecting the opinion of 70% of Americans should be overturned based on a very loose interpretation of a document that was written 250 years ago. That document gave an unbalanced leverage to “small” states such that a minority faction with unpopular positions could dominate the Supreme Court. We currently have a Supreme Court consisting of three justices that were appointed by a President that lost two popular elections: first in 2016 and then again in 2020. This partisan Court should not be allowed to decide the law of the land.
It is time for a march on Washington representing these 70% of Americans. We need a big crowd, a vociferous crowd, an energetic crowd and a crowd that will demand to be heard not just by the Supreme Court justices, but by our elected officials in Washington. Our elected representatives must recognize the rights of all people including women, minorities and other non-mainstream individuals without cowering to the conservative right with their extreme religious beliefs and their undue financial influence over their selected candidates. We need a government that represents a much wider spectrum of beliefs.
“STOP the REPEAL” march should be scheduled for May 28 of this year. Roe will be overturned in June and the mid-term elections are this November. Time is of the essence. This is a holiday weekend so folks will have an extra day to travel and make arrangements to attend the march. Let’s meet in front of the Supreme Court Building and then we’ll storm the building when the speeches are completed as all good “tourists” do. Let’s give John Roberts a real breach to worry about. Do you think this time that Republicans will be horrified as people march into these hallowed halls and demand justice for the perpetrators?
“We are getting madder by the minute!!” This phrase does not really work when hundreds, if not, thousands of lives are at risk everyday. It is time to act. The Russian invasion into Ukraine is bogged down and the Russian military is now targeting civilian population centers trying to intimidate the Ukrainian people into submission as their defending army is holding off the Russian military advance. As we have all seen on the news every night, the city of Mariupol has taken the brunt of the Russian bombing, and a once beautiful port city has been reduced to a massive rubble. Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in bomb shelters with provisions rapidly depleting, unable to escape as Russians artillery fires on them as they try to find a safe way out of the city.
The world no longer wants to hear that “NATO is strong and standing together,” something akin to “you are in our thoughts and prayers.” Ukraine borders directly with four NATO countries. It is a country that has asked to join the Alliance several times, most recently, just last summer. The Alliance delayed Ukraine’s admission into NATO for several political reasons, but we still have to ask ourselves, “Are Ukrainian lives less important that lives in NATO nations?” It is time for NATO to act.
The leaders of the NATO Alliance are meeting in Brussels this week. NATO should announce that they will immediately be conducting a humanitarian evacuation of the innocent civilians trapped in the city of Mariupol. NATO will send a fleet of Navy boats to the port of Mariupol. This evacuation will incur as soon as the flotilla can arrive at the port. An immediate ceasefire should be announced throughout the city. Russia must honor the ceasefire. Any violation of the ceasefire by Russia will be deemed a direct attack on NATO and will bring about an appropriate military response by the Alliance. The ceasefire shall be in place as long as the evacuation continues. This declaration by NATO will give a pause to the constant air strikes on Mariupol and allow innocent civilians the chance to escape onto the waiting ships of the NATO Navy.
This declaration by NATO is essential this week so that we can begin to bring relief to the several hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in Mariupol. We have let Putin dictate to the world the terms of this invasion. We cannot let Putin intimidate us into a passive responses when so many lives are at risk. We can then use these ceasefire talks as a starting point for a broader and more lasting ceasefire in the region.
I am a devout atheist. I started having doubts about the Almighty and His grand plan in my early teens as I started seeing the world as chaotic, unfair and destructive. This all came to a head as I watched my aunt, who was a very kind and gentle person and a nurse by trade, die a horribly slow and painful death with her battle with cancer. Throw in the Vietnam War, famine, drought and starvation and I could no longer believe in a Devine Order. I haven’t changed my views on the subject since I was 16.
In the mid-1970s after college, I went on one of those existential trips to Europe with no itinerary, no timetable and no suitcase and very little money. My means of travel was hitchhiking and after a while, I became quite proficient in this form of travel (there is a definite technique to succeed with this kind of transportation, but that is for another essay). I had been traveling about 8 months by myself going city to city, staying at youth hostels and meeting temporary companions along the way with whom I would visit the local sightseeing attractions or share in local meals. I missed the deeper bonds of a good friendship, so I called a friend back in the States who I knew would be embarking on a similar trip in a month so and suggested that we meet up and travel some together. We agreed two months in advance to meet on a Sunday in mid June 1976 at 6:00 PM in Paris in front of Notre Dame.
This was 1976. So after that phone call, I had absolutely no way to get in touch with him as there were no cell phones and neither he nor I had a fixed itinerary. I happened to be in Amsterdam the week before that fateful Sunday. I saw that Paris was a little over 300 miles away and decided to get on the road by 10:00 AM for this 6-hour drive (I was feeling pretty good about my hitchhiking skills only to need a two-hour cushion). I am not sure how I got out of the city and made it to the highway A-1 or A-10 or something like that, but I do remember looking at my watch and thinking I was in good shape. After a few minutes on the highway with my thumb out, I was amazed that there was no traffic. I was out there all alone. There was NO traffic at all! It was as if the world was in the midst of a horrible pandemic (this might be an anachronism).
I was standing waiting all alone on this abandoned highway when suddenly I saw a old, beat-up VW van approaching. I was confident that I am on my way. The van stopped, of course, and I was invited in. The van was inhabited by 6 hippy-looking individuals aged somewhere between late teens and mid-twenties and they all spoke English quite well, however with that little Dutch accent. I asked how far they are going and they told me that they are headed to a religious festival in Breda which is only a little more than an hour away and still in the Netherlands. Of course they were very interested in an American about their age and I was bombarded with a series of questions about the Vietnam War, popular American music bands, the extermination of the American Indian population during the American expansion West and then on to religion. They were fascinated that I am Jewish, but no longer a believer. They asked my opinion of Jesus and I answered quite honestly that I had no opinion as I had never really thought about the man, or Savior (dependent on your personal perspective). Oh, they wanted to tell me all about Jesus and all He can do to improve the world and all that He might do to make me a happier and more content individual. I told them that unfortunately I don’t believe, so that it would be hard to just let Jesus into my life. They told me that I needed to “challenge” Jesus so that he could reveal Himself to me. So I said, “OK, I want Jesus to make the world a better place.” They all smiled and said, “No, make it personal so there is no doubt about Jesus’ power to touch your life.” I said OK, this might sound petty, but, “I want Jesus to send me a car after you drop me off that will take me right to Paris and I don’t want to wait more than 10 minutes for that car to come along.” They told me that is “great” and are confident that Jesus will hear my challenge. As we approached their exit, they implored me to come to the festival and learn more about Jesus from all those that will be attending. I politely declined, and then one individual wrote down his address made me promise to send him a note if Jesus answered my challenge. I agreed and got out of the van.
It was now a little after 11:00 AM and the road was still totally abandoned. Not a car in sight. I looked at my watch to begin the 10 minute countdown. After 5 minutes, there were still no cars to be seen. Suddenly, on the horizon a lone car is coming my way. At the 6 minute and 30 second mark of the countdown, the car pulls over and the driver asked where I was going and I said Paris and he said, “Get in, this is your lucky day.” I beat my friend to Notre Dame by an hour.
Well, 46 years later and I still consider myself an atheist, although an atheist with a slight bit of doubt of my convictions. I have thought about this incident several times and have come to the conclusion that for certain individuals or groups of people looking for “meaning” and a “higher purpose”, these “miraculous” events fit their narrative. For example…..it has not rained in many, many days, let’s pray to God for rain…..no rain today, let’s pray again tonight……no rain again, let’s pray again. Finally rain, it’s a miracle. Jesus answers our prayers. Let’s pray grandpop gets better. Grandpop is better, it’s a miracle. Let’s pray that a car comes along on a quiet Sunday morning on a major highway between two major cities during the pinnacle of the “hippy” and “hitchhiking” era and then claim that is a miracle that the car stopped to help out a fellow human being. It is easy to believe that the prayer was answered, but let’s say right after that I immediately prayed to find an envelope with thousands of dollars on the ground right in front of me. I doubt that would have happened and my prayers would not have been answered and I would again doubt religion. We need to pick a prayer that could possibly be answered.
In hindsight, my only regret is that I did not write to the group in the van and let them know that a car did come by within the 10 minute period and take me to Paris. I am pretty confident that I would have been able to deduce their conclusion.
Now is time to jump on this unique opportunity. Close the deal.
As Russia continues it invasion on Ukraine, the world looks to impose severe sanctions on Russia. But, in order to truly cripple the Russian economy, there must be sanctions on Russia oil and gas exports.
Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, which account for about 60% of the country’s exports. Russia was the world’s third-largest oil producer in 2020, producing over 10 million barrels of oil a day, or 11% of the world’s total, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. Russia exports about 5 million barrels a day of crude plus 3 million barrels of refined products. These exports must be shutdown to truly bring down the Russian economy.
Iran is pumping about 2.5 million barrels per day, some 1.3 million barrels per day less than in 2018 when former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear accord and re-imposed sanctions, drastically cutting Tehran’s oil income. Iran is strongly motivated to have the sanctions lifted. Iran can quickly increase its oil production. This additional production will help offset the loss of Russian oil on the world markets. A Biden administration official claims that the six-month negotiations over the nuclear deal were entering their “final stretch,” though a full agreement that leads to unimpeded Iranian oil exports may not be implemented for months. What is the delay? Both sides should be extremely motivated to get the deal done and the new treaty signed. There should be around-the-clock negotiations until the deal is finalized.” Both the Russians and the Chinese have been negotiating with Iran to make large investments to help Iran achieve an even higher level of oil production. Russia is obviously unable at this time to commit to further investments in Iran. Once the new nuclear deal is finalized, UIS companies should jump in and assist Ian with this expanded oil production.
What is the delay in finalizing this new non nuclear proliferation agreement? We already had a previous deal that worked for all parties involved. Get the deal done.
One might say, “We have a liquidity problem”. A recent government report shows in the USA there is between $1.5 and $2 trillion more liquidity in personal accounts than there was at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
There are several reasons for this build-up of liquidity over the past two years. First, there was the lockdown in the early phases of the pandemic and most people stayed at home and continued to work drawing a salary with no way to significantly spend this earned money. Even as restrictions were loosened, there were still not the opportunities to spend money shopping or on travel and or on other social activities. In addition, in March 2020, the federal government passed the CARES Act which provided $600 billion to small business to keep them afloat and to help them maintain there current payroll. These funds eventually made it to individuals with the same restriction on spending. CARES, also the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program (FPUC), provided an additional $600 per week to individuals who were collecting regular state funded unemployment insurance. All thee factors pumped up personal savings. And finally, the Federal Reserve pumped several trillion dollars into the economy through Quantitative Easing by which the Fed prints money to go out into the market to buy bonds from big institutions for cash pumping this additional money into the economy, some eventually makes into personal bank accounts.
We are now at the point where the pandemic is winding down and individuals are ready to go out and spend to and make up for lost time. However, the economy is plagued with shortages of all kinds of items as factories let their inventory rundown during the pandemic and are now finding it difficult to ramp up as they are having trouble getting parts and materials needed for their manufacturing process. These factories are having trouble finding employees to work in their plants. Transportation is also plagued with all kinds of labor shortages so items are not getting to and from manufacturing locations. This is the supply-side issues we hear are plaguing the economy.
So, we are at a point of heightened demand with supply shortages. As we all learned in school when demand exceeds supply prices will rise. It is now time to take money out of the economy to ease some of this excess demand without hurting the economy. The traditional rate hikes instituted by the Federal Reserve make it more expensive for businesses to borrow driving up their cost and eventually raising prices to compensate. This hike in interest rates is intended tp slow the economy. Higher rates slow the housing markets as mortgage rates rise. Housing growth is a key part of our economic growth. Thus, Federal Reserve rate hikes ease inflation by slowing down the growth of the economy.
I am suggesting a “Quantitative Tightening”. In this scenario, the government offers personal saving bonds at much higher rates than are now available in the market. As a starting point, I might suggest 3% on three year bonds, 5% on five year bonds and something like 7% on a ten year bond and possibly 12% on twenty year bonds. These high personal saving rates will encourage people with large amount of cash in the personal accounts to purchase these bonds. The personal saving rates offered today are so low that people do not commit to long-term saving and instead go out into the marketplace to spend this growing cash account. These high rates hopefully encourage people to save for the future and remove a large portion of the $1.5 to $2 trillion in excess liquidity out of personal savings, lowering demand for goods and thus easing inflationary pressure while having people still fill optimistic about their personal wealth knowing that they are earning a high rate of return on their savings. This should allow for the economy to continue to grow without the inflationary pressures.
H O W A R D S B E N D 