The Fed's announced policies yesterday are nothing short of spectacular. It is a rare display of the real power running America, and neither the president nor Congress is powerful enough to prevent the Fed from moving forward with its short-sighted and highly destructive plans.
When you consider that a great deal of the legislative and executive energy is spent trying to carve up the pie without making it arbitrarily larger, and then the Fed can come along and unilaterally double or triple the balance sheet without so much as a debate, then I ask you where the true power lies in this country.
The Fed will argue that it is pulling out all the stops to prevent the nation from descending into a deflationary spiral, but it is the Fed itself, through fractional reserve lending, that has created the conditions for deflation (and inflation) to begin with.
Banks cannot be expected to lend loosely in the current economic environment, so why do they need so much money? We keep hearing about too-big-to-fail, but not one peep yet as to breaking up any of the too-large institutions. Talk about your moral hazards.
The worst part about all this is we are probably blowing our last, best chance to do something great as a nation - something big to get us out of the mess. We are going to create jobs building roads and pounding sand while we explode our balance sheet trying to re-inflate the housing bubble. There are much better things that we could be putting that money to work for, and it would probably re-inflate all the bubbles as a side effect.
Picture this:
An elevated platform snakes its way through the Northeast corridor. On the top side of the platform are north and southbound commuter trains - possible maglev but certainly high speed. A unique feature of the line is that for every passenger who gets on the train, the train will not stop or slow down until it is that passenger's stop.
How does that work, you ask?
Simple: As a train approaches a station, say within 1 mile of it, a car that has boarded passengers independently leaves the station ahead of the train. It originally is travelling slower than the train but accelerates to match the speed of the train at the same time the train catches up with the car and couples to it.
Meanwhile, anyone on the train wanting to get off at the station makes their way back to the last car in the train. before the train reaches the station, the last car uncouples from the train and decelerates into the station side rail, replacing the car that just left. The train is constantly gaining and losing a car, but never changing speed.
We are not done yet.
Underneath the platform are additional north-south lines for freight. This is an entirely automated system that is the backbone of a supply chain for an efficient industrial corridor. It is like a river that flows two ways. It hosts autonomous carriers that hang from the tracks under (or in) the platform. These carriers are designed to haul a standard container fitted with special couplings on the top to link to the carrier.
Freight terminals would consist of a siding where a carrier can temporarily 'exit' the system to load and unload a container. An agent with a container to ship pulls a truck into a bay at a freight terminal (siding) and summons a carrier. The carrier is either already waiting at the terminal or the closest empty carrier is directed to the terminal where it will automatically hoist and secure the container off the truck. The carrier then coordinates its entry back onto the main line to proceed to its destination. Once on the main line, the carrier's arrival time at the destination is predictable to the millisecond.
Both the top and the bottom of the platform are powered by electricity generated from
Pebble Bed nuclear reactors, a next-generation reactor design with superior all around characteristics. Additionally, the reactors could provide electricity to run the plants along the corridor and this electricity could be provided for free as an incentive to locate along the corridor.
Additional support for the manufacturing corridor could be a plant that specializes in waste reclamation and the disposal of toxic materials, with dedicated carriers sent out to provide free transport for waste products.
The non-stop, high-speed commuter line would essentially open up the commute range for work. Working 200 miles away would not be a problem.
This is the kind of project the US should be doing. Not only would it create thousands of excellent jobs building it, but it would provide a green industrial area with efficiency and convenience unrivaled in the world. It would go a long way toward keeping vital manufacturing jobs right here at home.
