World Economy and lending

I know I am not qualified to hold a long list of jobs, in fact I am really only qualified to hold a relatively small number of jobs...but I read the as much as I can and I try to stay on top of everything I can as well. I tried to read different sources and different opinions so that I can try to look at issues objectively even though I am a liberal at heart. I don't always agree with everything on the left, I just agree more with the left than the right. I think it is important to know where I sit so you can understand where I stand.

I am trying to figure out the best method for proposing an idea that came to me today. We funded 2 wars in two parts of the world and now we are winding those wars down. We are trying to stimulate the economy while keeping our products cheap for export, so we have kept the dollar low. We are still the worlds largest economy despite 9% unemployment and we enjoy a pretty good lifestyle relative to other up and coming economies like China and India. But the high unemployment is dragging us down and we have to put people to work. Manufacturing and production are slowly increasing again but banks are holding tight to there money which is keeping small businesses from expanding, we want to demonize banks for doing that but we all own the banks and we want them to be profitable, every quarter.

So my idea is simple, let's spend the next 8 years funding business and education with no expectation that we will get the money back, with the same amount of money we just spent on 2 wars and see if we can energize the economy. Banks operate on the assumption that their investments will generate income, thus a profit for shareholders. The government operates on a different basis where investment does see a monetary return, sometimes it is a security return like in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, where we expect the world to be safer. But if we took all that money and invested in education and small business loans wouldn't that ultimately make use safer and stronger economically? The cost of wars since 9/11 is approximately 3.7 trillion dollars, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629 and we are still not done spending money on it. Are those countries truly any better off, I don't know I don't live there. Am I any safer, maybe, but I would argue that the wars had little to do with it, look at all that we have spent on airport security. Is the world better off without Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, on that I would completely agree. But we completely overspent on trying to rid the world of those two idiots and I am not better economically because of it. And this is my point.

I know Solyndra didn't pan out and that upsets lots of people, but the reality is that they did generate a great product that was expensive because of the fluctuating price of silicone and the fact that the Chinese government supplements the costs of solar panels produced by Chinese manufactures. But while we gave something like 500 million dollars to Solyndra, they spent that money on US employees and good and services in the US. So that loss is was off set by the mere fact that US citizens were employed and taxes were generated. It seems like a simple approach to big problem and I welcome the chance to discuss this idea with people from across the political spectrum. But we need to spend 3.5 trillion dollars in 10 years on education and small business with the knowledge that that money will be spent here to generate jobs and taxes here. If we lend that money to small businesses that put people to work and brings products and services to the marketplace then we all win regardless of the cost. If we spend that money on education in this country to teach the next generation of children to be like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (read Outliers by Malcolm Galdwell) and other entrepreneurs.....because in the end we are investing in us, in the US, in the future with a tangible result(a strong and vibrant economy) not a war in a far off place with two idiots. I ask again what did we get for spending 3.7 trillion dollars on 2 wars, when they "spent an estimated $400,000 to $500,000 on the plane attacks that killed 2,995 people " Reuters 6/29/2011

I realize the political fallout from shifting lending from the private sector to the governmental sector is a big fiasco, and I don't have the answers to all of the issues around this problem, but it just seems like we can lend money to big corporations with no strings attached like GM and Citibank, then why can't we lend money to the real drivers of our economy youth and small businesses? We have a whole lot of people who are frustrated with the fact that their economic outlook is bleak, I am not talking about handouts...I am talking about loans for college at really low rates and for small businesses at really low rates, where other banks won't help out. Banks can still lend to bigger corporations and to home buyers and other businesses at a higher rate, but lets stop pretending that banks have a moral obligation to help the little man, they are solely for profit and the government is not in the same realm, because we don't expect our government to make money we expect them to provide a safe working environment with safe roads, safe airports and safe railways. We expect them to help the little man and right now...the little man needs a helping hand.