a letter sent to Obama’s “change.gov” site
What the heck, thought I’d throw this out and see if anything interesting happens:
“Sir or Madam,
As an American citizen who has spent long years living overseas, I would like to share a couple of ideas which may contribute to solving the US’s current problems. The first has to do with banking and the second has to do with the environment, infrastructure, and impending WPA 2009.
Years ago, certain German banks offered high-yield Certificates of Deposit but the consumer could not touch his cash during the deposit period: no early withdrawal, none. My thought here is to have a government-assisted high-yield CD - for example, 10% interest for a 5 year CD - so that the banks would know that certain funds would be locked in their vaults and they could lend this cash. Banks supposedly aren’t lending because they want to stockpile cash: if they have a locked-in cash reserve made up of these CDs, that money could be pushed into the system. The government would, instead of shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars into a void, pay a large percentage of this interest paid out on these CDs.
The second idea is infrastructure. The US is a very large nation with vast distances between many major metropolitan areas. Japan, where I live, uses bullet trains as well as airplanes to connect its cities. The US should invest, heavily, in its rail network and, in particular, bullet trains. Listen, to fly from LA to Phoenix or Denver it may be a simple 2-2.5 hour flight, but factoring in hour-before-check-in arrival deadlines, security delays, and the typical distance from the city center that an airport is built, a 2 hour flight is suddenly a 4 hour+ ordeal. Walking on a bullet train departing from the heart of LA and walking off in the heart of Phoenix or Denver (or Chicago or where ever!) would be a 3 hour+ ride, but without the hassles and delays of fuel-intensive airports it is a net-win. I know; I use the Japanese airports and trains every day and, hands down, the bullet train system is FAR easier. Please, consider linking a nationwide bullet train network into the existing metropolitan train systems rapidly springing up throughout our land.
Regards,
Sean Lewis”