Jobs & Homes

Funny how simple the solution to the issues seems – until you try to apply tangible steps. Lots of folks are telling you for sure what is going to happen and when. Government leaders. Columnists. Some project total doom. Others see corrections and near-term growth. Bottom line, no one knows, and add a monkey wrench from left field, a global catastrophe, and the rules change.

That said, what can be done? I’ve been screaming that you start at the bottom before you address the top, because if your people don’t trust the solution, neither will the rest of the world. This is the first part in a two-blog presentation today. Later, I’ll speak about trust and value-building, but let’s start with the obvious:

Jobs – Make sure people get paid for the work they have, that they do not lose their jobs and that there are new opportunities – sponsored by government research, government-sponsored work and government-incented private sector jobs. Make sure employers have receivable credit to meet their payrolls, provide federal funding today to begin scheduled (fully planned) but deferred infrastructure maintenance and repair (we can begin to build the new stuff later) from local to state to federal projects (jobs now!), and accelerate spending on all government programs that provide “investment” opportunities in growth (energy research, education, better infrastructure, health care, etc.) that make us more valuable and productive – features we need to rebuild this country. That’s the real “stimulus package” we need.

Homes – It’s not about buying up bad mortgages from the institutions who stupidly bought the piles of subprime loans or under-analyzed CDS paper. Maybe the government can help those institutions – later after the bleeding stops – if they have other values to the taxpayers. But it is about stopping the foreclosures that devastate the values of every other home in this country, capping what started out as teaser rate mortgages (like 1 percent for a year or two, and then we “make up for lost ground” later… resulting in some folks paying 11+% today!!!!) to a more realistic 6% and then letting the originating banks (for a small piece of the interest flow) sort out those who lied on their applications from those who were misled later in this cycle, and rebuilding the home loan market so real estate can be bought and sold again. Make sure the money is deployed locally!

Since this is really a two-part blog, I’m going to add the second level of the Jobs, Homes, Trust & Value scenario in my next effort. Just know that these four issues literally will decide how, when, how fast and if we fully recover our economic power, our stability and growth. My personal opinion is that if each American chooses to make it work, a strong recovery is inevitable.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.