Tag: innovation

From Reaction, Depression and Hopelessness to Envisioning the Future with Freedom!

No, I ain’t talking about the “new normal”. That is epic BS PsyOp stuff to get the masses to accept whatever the elites and global cabal want the slaves to believe. I am talking about critically thinking through what has happened and KNOW that there are GOOD unintended consequences to the government’s overreaction to this flu-like virus, the ‘Rona.

I am starting to see some good writers start to move from helping us all understand what is really going on by digging deep into researching the lies and myths our government and media handed us in the last few months towards helping us see how this might all play out. One of my faves in this season is Bill Sardi who has something to say almost everyday from the Lew Rockwell dot Com site, which could be on most people’s to-do list everyday with our morning coffee!

We all should know by now that the federal government of the USA got this lock-down/house-arrest action started based on CDC input that utilized methods developed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2006 towards what we just experienced. The fact that this method was used across the globe says a lot about who all are behind this.

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” – William Pitt

For the purposed of today’s post I just want to highlight some things, some positive, some futuristic and of course all might cause some degree of fear since we have not done this before. We should know by now that almost all governments are inept at any kind of innovation or envisioning of the future as their mantra is usually status-quo and group think which leads to dumpster fires and clusterf*cks.

Bill Sardi’s title of his LRC post:

What Big-Government, Fascist, Left-Wing Indoctrinationists Never Thought Would Happen: Homeschooling, The End Of Doctoring, Reliance On Self-Care, Vitamin Pills In Place Of Vaccines And Maybe Even Gold-Backed Money

… indicates that the “Leftists” are probably caught off guard by some of the things happening as a result of their continued push for lock-downs in states and for schools this fall. Bill bring up just a few to help us enter the process for considering a continuation of “normal” that is basically another season of human advancement chained to the fact that we are all broken people with faults so that we should always consider there are evil agendas in the background of every endeavor.

But there is another ironic side to this unprecedented social engineering project that is underway.

  • Who would have ever thought that mothers, fearful of their children being infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus, aren’t thinking of taking their kids to the doctor for shots after the epidemic is over.
  • Who would have thought that doctors, fearful of getting infected by their patients, are retiring for good, ushering in an era of self-care.
  • Who would have thought the masses would be taking vitamins instead of Big Pharma’s drugs to protect against the COVID-19?
  • Who would have thought that parents may not be taking their kids back to school come Fall and have decided to homeschool.

See? I told you that you might have hope for the future once you get through the grieving process of what has happened in the past few months courtesy of the government who takes your money!

The balance of the article targets different areas of our society’s life that will evolve over the next few years. Sure there are some rough times ahead .. but in the spirit of Thomas Paine:

Are y’all up for the challenge to present your kids and grandkids peace someday?

Let’s explore what Bill Sardi has on his mind the end of May 2020:

1. According to economist John Williams, the U.S. is increasing money supply by 15-20%. That could mean inflation of 15-20%. The U.S. Federal Reserve quotes 2.2% inflation which is its target number and the financial press conveniently publishes that number to the masses. But actual inflation prior to the entry of the COVID-19 virus has been ~6% according to Shadowstats.com, meaning a worker would have to ask for a 6-percent pay raise every year to keep up with inflation. Well, now that number may rise to 20%.

Yes, it is true when the money supply (which expanded already 2.5x since the 2008 recession) expands, fiat money moves towards its intrinsic value, $0.00. Because of all the bubbles and all the debts all around our fake US economy that has had the can kicked since the FED was created in 1913, there is no easy way out. We will have to see businesses close, bankruptcies happen and eventually, government drastically down-sized on all levels, federal, state and local. This is a multiple decade reality so we might as well start. The over-reach of government has fast tracked this process and now there is the momentum to keep this going.

This is how the idea of a guaranteed income arose. Low-income workers are doomed.  America has a real plague of low income workers (53 million workers — 44% of all workers — who have low-wage jobs of ~$10/hour and annual incomes of less $20,000; many of these being females with children in part-time jobs).  Something must be done apart from price controls to keep the price of food, energy, housing and transportation from pushing millions of Americans into the street.  If we don’t maintain free markets and competition the price of food will never go down.  Recognize, the federal government bought 1.4 billion pounds of cheese that it has stockpiled.  Rather than reduce dairy subsidies the USDA has been paying to have surplus milk made into cheese.  Food banks could use this cheese, especially now.

More on the low-income workers in the next bullet point, but here we see the government “help/intervention” being worse than no help at all. The government will have to get out of these areas where they have no expertise .. which leads me to this diagram:

So how low do we go in restricting where government can be the middleman? I am sure in urban areas they want socialism whereas in rural areas they might want minarchism. This then would lead to the discussion of secession and the formation of city-states and the like and unpack the central government we have today. THAT will have to be a future post.

Back to Bill’s list:

Many Americans fear 5-G networks for reasons of imagined gene mutations, impaired immunity and electronic toxicity. The problem with that thinking is, so does sunlight.  That drivel serves to distract from the real intent of the 5-G revolution. The impetus to usher in 5-G satellite networks is to bring in an age of robotic “workers” and AI-controlled vehicles.   This will be the new division of labor in America.  5G is needed so there is no lag-time in commanding these electronic slaves.

Robots will replace human labor, in particular low-skilled/low-income workers whose repetitive work can be automated.   By bumping millions of workers performing menial labor out of a job makes room for the 5-G controlled robots.

Then the U.S. will have a highly productive labor force of 24/7 robots that never require sick-time, vacations, or even FICA deductions out of their paychecks to fund Medicare and Social Security.  While this advancement makes America more competitive and independent, this new division of labor scuttles any idea of funding Medicare in its present form.  Un-skilled immigrants won’t be coming to America for jobs any longer.  Some may return to their country of origin.  Social welfare costs will decline.

Thus the U.S. will be able, via AI robotic labor, shed itself from reliance upon cheap foreign labor overseas to produce many products it now imports.  AI is a shot to the heart of China.  The Chinese will have to start paying their labor more money to create their own consumer economy.  (However, even China intends to utilize robotic labor.). The problem is, robotics and AI are a bonanza for the wealthy.  Where will the menial laborers go?  This question is asked with regard to the forecast by Deagel.com that the American population will decline by 230 million over the next five years.  Maybe the movie Soylent Green, which attempted to show what the U.S. would be like in 2022, was prescient.

OK, if we focus on this point #3 one paragraph at a time we can be reassured that 5G health concerns, while real, need to be offset by the positive attributes of this technological advance. We need to count the cost and accomplish the due diligence to ensure that human health is taken into consideration with independent research while also seeing what robotic innovation has in store. Robots have made huge strides in car manufacturing, laboratories, etc. We need to all research this so we don’t carried away by the fads .. remember the fear people had when we went from horses to trains and to cars, we need to invest time to research things ourselves so we can be wise in the midst of those driven to insanity in masses.

Beyond this, the low wage worker’s future could be a lot better IF the government would back off all the regulations for starting a business. Increasing the opportunity for especially young people to develop a career where they give value via the Internet to allow more home-based businesses ESPECIALLY in a time when homeschooling might very well explode would be a win-win. Let creative entrepreneurs have the freedom to explore without the heavy hand of government burdening them with fear and anxiety.

Bill’s next idea:

4. The U.S. may sell off $16.8 trillion of its estimated $200 trillion of assets (oil leases, empty post office buildings, veterans’ hospitals, military bases) and bring the National Debt to zero, making the U.S. a creditor nation rather than a debtor nation. President Trump ordered the General Accounting Office to appraise the value of U.S. assets and came up with that $200 trillion figure.  Then the $574 billion in interest paid on the National Debt would vanish, the largest tax cut in history.

This would be a big step in the right direction for our very dysfunctional government. I would add to this list a huge amount of federal land especially in the western states and Alaska that could be sold!

The nation’s global military force is another huge pile of assets that could easily be liquidated in a strategic way more than 50% without threatening the domestic security at all.

I will skip a few more of Bill’s list and end on this note:

7. The era of doctoring is over. Many doctors have suddenly retired.  Hospitals are closing.  High-cost modern medicine has driven itself out of business.  Hopefully, an era of self-care may be ushered in to replace it. In the midst of an infectious disease lockdown, self-care is almost all that Americans have because they fear going to doctors’ offices and hospitals where they may acquire the dreaded COVID-19 coronavirus.

Unimaginably, the coronavirus epidemic has literally wiped out store shelves of natural remedies such as vitamins C, D and zinc.  Americans are learning to stay healthy without doctoring.  Even hospitals have now prescribed vitamins and minerals for their protocols to treat COVID-19 coronavirus in-patients.  This includes zinc lozenges.

I’ve written about the bewildered cardiologists in the U.S. who want to know where all their cardiac patients have gone.  A 30% decline in mortal heart attacks is guesstimated.  The disappearance of vitamin C pills from store shelves may be the answer as to why.  The same thing happened in 1970 when Linus Pauling published a book entitled VITAMIN C AND THE COMMON COLD.  The refusal of modern medicine to embrace preventive care is being exposed.  Will the people ever return to their doctors?

One nutraceutical, resveratrol, could replace almost all cardiac drugs as it is a blood thinner, vasodilator (widens constricted blood vessels), prevents damage to heart muscle during a heart attack, actually stimulates collateral circulation much like internal bypass surgery, and even inhibits growth of coronaviruses.  This remarkable natural remedy is shunned by modern medicine.  Maybe now it will get a second look as prevention may save the day in health care.

Childhood vaccinations have temporarily been suspended during the COVID-19 lockdown.  Now mothers are not sure about the safety of taking their children to the doctor’s office, given 30% of those affected are healthcare workers.  The vaccine model of health has become impractical.  Over 70 approved vaccines and another 240 under development.  By age 18 children receive 51-54 vaccine doses (shots or oral). There is strong evidence that vaccination induces autoimmune disorders.  How many jabs can our children tolerate?

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) reports UNVACCINATED kids are far healthier.  CHD is citing an authoritative study published at SAGE OPEN MEDICINE that reveals vaccinated children are twice as likely to experience developmental delays and ear infections and four times as likely to develop asthma compared to unvaccinated children.

It may not take long for mothers of small children to learn that zinc activates T-cells produced in the thymus gland to produce antibodies against each and every pathogen children (and adults) are exposed to.  No need for vaccines.  Instead of vaccinating against each and every disease, the thymus gland produces antibodies against all of them as a child is naturally exposed.  Zinc supplementation represents a natural alternative to vaccination, as explained at BEYONDVACCINES.com. Who would have ever thought this would happen?

This one is huge, a game-changer, as “my body, my choice” is real (unless you have another body inside you IMHO). The way forward allowing Pharma to ‘contribute’ as needed instead of controlling and manipulating the public policy and the path forward would be the healthiest for all concerned!

The bottom line is that I encourage y’all to read the article itself and consider the future in light of Bill’s thoughts in his post today on LRC.

Peace out y’all, hang in there!!! Better days are ahead even though the seas are rough today!

-SF1

With China Reeling from Corona-virus, Is Russia in the US Empire’s Cross-hairs?

 

Sanctions, embargoes and tariffs might not enough for the DC Elite to be convinced that Russia is not a threat to the US Empire’s future. It seems that China, which owns a substantial chunk of US debt, has been marginalized, either by design or by coincidence.

What is the source of this paranoia? Is it that the Russians embarrassed the US by really defeating ISIS? Maybe it was what the Russians found in Syria after ISIS retreated that had the US Empire’s fingerprints all over it. Maybe it is because Russia has done fairly well in spite of the embargoes by trading with other nations, getting off the USD petro-dollar and securing Crimea? Is it because Putin pulled levers to get Trump elected? (Don’t make me laugh)

The MIC / Deep State does need a war soon to keep the defense industry humming and keep those DC lobbyists busy with a majority of Congress in lining their pocketbooks. The Israel-First policy has been a great program for two intense decades (preceded by a couple of decades of US-centric support) ..

.. but that program might be plateauing a bit now that Iraq is pushing for independence from the US orbit, thanks to Trump’s assassination of Iran’s 2nd in command on Iraqi soil. Israel will keep crying that it needs the Golan Heights, more Palestinian soil to settle on and protection from Iraqi missiles.

So to move on and ratchet up some war or preparation for war somewhere on this globe, the US has to focus on Russia. I mean, look at the way Russia has encroached on NATO since 1990:

Oops, I guess NATO has been in expansion mode. Oh well, the narrative pays little attention to facts.

Paul Craig Robert’s article caught my eye this week as he sensed that Russia should be alert to what the US Empire is up to. It seems from this article, that the Russian people don’t see the US as an enemy:

… a contemporaneous poll published by the Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster, reports that 80% of Russians see Washington and its NATO vassals as “friends.” https://tsarizm.com/news/eastern-europe/2020/02/18/poll-4-out-of-5-russians-view-west-as-a-friend/

“Only 3% of Russian respondents said they see the West as Russia’s enemy, Levada said. Another 16% said they view the West as a rival.

“Two-thirds of Levada’s respondents (67%) said Russia should treat the West as a “partner,” while 11% said Russia should treat the West as a “friend,” according to the Kommersant business daily’s breakdown of the data.”

Roberts is concerned that the reality of the US Empire’s hate on Russia is a struggle that should be more apparent and real.

Consider the expense (and debt) that the US has expended only to be shown up by Russia’s new hyper-sonic missiles and other emerging technologies.

Examples of the technological lag were made public almost two years ago:

– Mach 20 allows supersonic missile delivery system that can quote “deliver missiles to the needed point in just a matter of the seconds

– A cruise missile with a nuclear engine

– The 200 ton SARMAT ballistic missile that circles around the Earth and again come to the other continents from a surprisingly weird angles

There are a couple more, but I think you get the picture.

With a 1/10th of the US Empire budget (not including the black budgets and other military agencies that do not figure into the DoD official budget), Russia has been 10x more innovative in an attempt to defend itself. I contend that only these new systems that have come of age in the last 5 years helps to deter the US from attempting regime change on Russia itself .. again.

While Roberts thinks that Russia’s military understands the latest war-game that NATO is amassing near Russia’s borders, he contends that the government is failing their people in getting them to understand this reality. Maybe Russia understands that a distracted population is not an innovative or productive one, I guess that would be my own take. In either case, Roberts then says:

How can the Russian people, humiliated by American sanctions and endless denunciations of their elected president, who led them out of American captivity, and threatened by Washington’s nuclear missiles on their border, possiblly(sic) believe in friendship and partnership with Washington?

If the polls are correct, and the Russian people do not understand Washington’s hegemonic impulse, Russian sovereignty is not a sure thing.

I contend that psychologically, having the people surprised by an overt act of aggression on the part of the US Empire would kindle a defensive posture more than warning them day after day that the evil empire (US) is poised to strike at any minute. That is something only the US government would do to justify expensive military interventions around the globe as well as a massive debt.

I stand impressed to date of Russia’s attitude on the world stage, patient with countries like Turkey that vacillate between Russian and US circles while providing true relieve to the people of Syria that is still reeling from Obama’s and Hillary’s induced “civil war’ there using ISIS as their weapon of choice.

Things sure have changed in 40 years, from crazy Ivan to reasonable Putin while the US’s collateral damage was JFK on their way to having crazy Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama and now Trump manning the wheel.

Peace out

-SF1

A Journey of Discovery: What Drove Those That Have Gone Before Us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=435&v=20qgbjwoegY

To quote our contemporary, Ricardo  Duchesne, who asked in his book, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization:

“What caused the buildup of ideas…From the Italian Galileo to the Polish and Prussian Copernicus?… these ideas then being picked up and debated across Europe, to the Dane Tyco Brahe in his study of comets, the German Kepler building on Brahe, and also the Englishman William Gilbert… these ideas then fused with the Dutchman Christian Huygen’s centrifugal force, the French Descartes’ algebraic geometry and so on…”

A sense of independence and freedom runs throughout our history. What we find in our people is that rather than state-sanctioned, top-down mandates directing scientific and artistic life, the Westerners more often had independent spaces of inquiry– guilds, universities, laboratories, artistic circles, who sought to dare and create and explore.

Inspiring, in that even in the midst of the wars that Jesus said Himself were to be persistent (The Bible Book Of Matthew Chapter 24 Verses 6-8 spoke by Jesus):

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

.. and yet, the results of wars can be redeemed, and while they may have had evil intentions, there can be healing on the other side and a deeper view of life, as a gift, itself:

… With such engines of passion and curiosity driving us, conflicts naturally arise, but past wars do not negate the wider bonds of our people. 

Often times, wars were fought to assert sovereignty, harkening again to that theme of freedom. 

And of course, sometimes we were at the hands of leaders who, unrestrained by small scale bonds and duties, sought megalomaniacal gains, or sold out to the lure of unchecked power, sometimes subverted by alien influences. 

This doesn’t mean that when the German and English soldiers put down their arms to play games with each other during the Christmas truce of World War I, they didn’t know deep down that they were related. They did.

Just like in the early 1900s, when elderly Union and Confederate soldiers embraced each other at American Civil War battle anniversaries…

Yes, we share a common Source, we are all made in the image of the One who made us. We are designed to tinker, to learn, to improve, to discover:

No matter what we may learn, no matter how surprised we may be by future findings, our story reaches back much further than is commonly thought today.

Know what has been shared in this presentation.

Let it spur you on to discover more.

Know that we have a common source and that now more than ever, share a common fate. 

Be well. 

Yes, be well.

-SF1

When the Underdog Surprises the Main Dog (Russia & US Empire)

Via the SOUTH Pole (“Remember the French Maginot Line?”) Upper Right: Florida

The seeds of this day has been coming for 25 years, ever since the US promised Russia, in the vacuum left when the USSR peacefully split into republics, that US/NATO expansion into the vacuum would not happen.

Two things happened in the spring of 2018 that has made clear the ramifications of this move.

  • The revelations that the US under the Clinton Administration outright lied to Russia’s leader Boris Yeltsin in the period between 1991 and 1994
  • The revelations that Russia under Vladimir Putin unveiled in his 01MAR2018 address that let the world know that not just on one technological front, but on a half a dozen, that Russia has indeed check-mated the US Empire in military strategy with only 10% of the financial resources that the US had during these same two decades.

There is so much that has happened that it is essential to break this down into several posts as outlined below:

  • This post that will capture the essence of the promises made in the 1990s when the USSR unilaterally offered to end the Cold War competition and was led to believe that NATO expansion, the very item that worried the Russians the most, would not be a thing and an overview of the technological advances that the Russian military surprise the US military with this spring
  • Subsequent posts outlining these technological advances that has US military strategists wondering is if several US multi-billion dollar projects are already outdated/obsolete by the following Russian programs: RS-28 Sarmat heavy Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, Kinzhal Hypersonic Missile, Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle, Burevestnik nuclear-powered precision-guided cruise missile,  Poseidon unmanned fast-moving underwater nuclear drone and an anti-missile Combat Laser –Peresvet.

I know that Americans have difficulty understanding the impact of history on current events, but those nations that have been duped by American foreign policy and treaties never forget. The USSR, a communist bastion of proud men and women, basically saw the writing on the wall that their political philosophy was not sustainable. Finances showed them in 1989 that their trajectory was unsustainable and as such, refused to lie to their peoples (many different people groups under the USSR umbrella) any longer.

Boris Yeltsin was critical to have in place at this point in time to humbly allow the transition from a communistic regime that prided itself in being a super power towards an admission that decentralized republics would best serve the people in the long term. This allowed local peoples to be more intimately involved in their destiny. Sure there was tons of corruption as the communist leadership released its grip on industry and the military let alone all the financial intricacies involved in “spin-down” of the USSR. Oligarchs are still an issue the Putin faces decades later.

One recent article that highlights what has been learned about this time of transition is from the Lew Rockwell site and is quoted below:

The new documents, compiled by the National Security Archive from US and Russian government files, show that US officials gave misguiding statements to Russian President Boris Yeltsin about plans for the expansion of NATO. They told Yeltsin that the Partnership for Peace — a NATO program to encourage military co-operation between NATO members and other Euro-Atlantic and ex-Soviet states — was an alternative to expanding NATO. At the same time they were planning to expand NATO membership while dismissing Russian officials’ concerns about being excluded from future Europe-wide security partnerships.

How many times does THIS have to happen for people all around the world to understand the rotten character of the US Empire. From treaties with the American Indians to the 21st century, it seems that the US can never be trusted. Lately, with Bin Laden (freedom fighter), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), and Qaddafi (Libya) leaders each being supported by US/CIA for years until they out-lived their usefulness and we turned on, no wonder Iran, North Korea and now China and Russia have their doubts about the “word” of the US Empire. This is exactly how bullies act.

The US dispatched vice President Gore to try to smooth things over, but when Clinton and Yeltsin met in Moscow in May 1995, Yeltsin was still concerned with the American push for NATO expansion. A record of the meeting shows that Yeltsin objected:

“I see nothing but humiliation for Russia if you proceed… Why do you want to do this? We need a new structure for Pan-European security, not old ones! But for me to agree to the borders of NATO expanding towards those of Russia — that would constitute a betrayal on my part of the Russian people.”

So for more than four years at this point, Yeltsin objects to how the US leaders were two-faced in their dealings with the Soviets and now with the new republics.

Clinton assured Yeltsin once more that any expansion would be ‘gradual, steady, measured’ and that ‘I won’t support any change that undermines Russia’s security or redivides Europe’. Ultimately the two leaders agreed that any NATO expansion would be deferred until after the 1996 Presidential elections in both of their respective countries.

By this time the damage was done, see here the effects:

Do you still believe anything that the Clintons/Bushes/US Government says?

It is obvious, especially since 2000 that the people and leadership in Russia have not stood still in waiting on the promises of the US government. Russia has emerged as an underdog in several ways and recently have received a badge of honor in being targeted with multiple sanctions for lies the US government is using to justify its actions. Whether it is election meddling (which the US government is a pro at, over 80 times since WWII) or being involved in various false flags that have the CIA fingerprints, the bully does not want its motives exposed. Probably the biggest thing Russia has done is reveal to what degree the US and other NATO powers were involved in the “color revolution” in Ukraine as well as support of ISIS in Syria. The US is accustomed to having other countries cover for them, and tipping off the world to the real US mode of operations (MOs) is something the US exceptionalism band (Republicans and Democrats) desires revenge on.

While the US/NATO has been manipulating Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan as well as countries close to the Russian border, the Russians have been quietly embarking on a strategic path toward learning from the fall of an over extended USSR and towards technological transformation to allow their “Tier 2” status not to render themselves defenseless from pressures from the outside. THIS is what defense is all about and this translates into a nationalistic pride that has Russians being solidly behind the limited external missions that Russia chooses to be involved with (i.e. Syria).

The timing of the revelations that have the US Empire back-pedaling and attempting to save face are stark and reveal once more that the US intelligence community is more involved in politics than in intelligence. Their inability to communicate what they knew about 9/11 must have clued the Russians in toward exploiting this intelligence gap! Just as the US Empire is ratcheting up sanctions and trade wars while also almost openly supporting ISIS in Syria, Russia was able to help the thinking people in this world that Russia is not weak, but that it is willing, in a controlled and strategic way to offer an alternative to the US hegemony. Russia now has China, Iran and an increasingly number of NATO nations that are willing to continue trade, and this allows Russia to be a healthy competitor to both the US military, but also to the US morals displayed yet again globally.

Each of these six technological achievements (seen in this great article **NOTE** with incorrect link naming) alone could have been big news, but that Russia dropped this bomb this spring is no accident. In subsequent posts I hope to share the significance of each one of these technological milestones as well as possible fallout in the US space for military expertise.

Apparently, the Russian strategists in the 2000s firmly believed the following:

Guess I Will Always Be a Sailor at Heart: Domestic Transport Solutions

In this past week I have commuted to my employer’s headquarters twice and was shocked yet again in 2018 on how bad the highways were in terms of potholes and bridge expansion joints still impacted from the previous winter. I mean, come on, it is the end of July and there seems to be a huge delay in government getting their act together for the necessary maintenance and repairs. I have come to expect this in states that seem to always struggle with its infrastructure like Michigan and Illinois but this was in a high growth area near Indianapolis, IN.

Five and ten years ago it seemed that Indiana always not only maintained their roads the best in the Midwest, but also was able to upgrade the highway system. However, for whatever reason it is becoming evident that the wheels might be coming off the complex federal/state/county/municipality bureaucracy, and before you know it we will have another round of precipitation and freezing temperatures that will work its way into all the highway cracks and do even more damage this winter.

From the Cato Institute is an article that suggest some possible reversals that might take the weight (literally) off this aging infrastructure by using once again our waterway systems in this country to facilitate freight transportation. Seems that in researching why waterways were not prioritized in the last half century or so the author came up with a piece of government regulation that seems to have stifled any entrepreneurship of this option:

Passed in 1920, this law mandates that ships transporting cargo between two points in the United States be domestically flagged, owned, crewed, and built. Intended to bolster the U.S. maritime sector, the Jones Act has instead been a case study in the failures of protectionism. Absent foreign competition, U.S. shipbuilders produce vessels whose price is as much as eight times higher than those built abroad. This disincentive to the purchase of new vessels means we have fewer ships and a fleet that is old and inefficient.

High costs have inevitably followed and, along with them, increased demand for transportation alternatives such as trucking and rail.

Again, government interference in the market means distortions that might benefit some industries for a time but long term causes ineffective options for the customers (personal and business) that utilize any transportation system domestically. The proof of this is below:

From 1960 to 2014, the amount of freight placed on railroads increased by 48 percent while intercity trucks saw their loads grow by an impressive 217 percent. In sharp contrast, the amount of cargo carried by ships sailing around the coasts during this period decreased by 44 percent. And Great Lakes shipping declined by 43 percent.

Obviously, the government is inept at keeping the transportation infrastructure up to code (let alone, up to speed) as a monopoly always provides substandard service. The shift to waterways also will cause many to suspect environmental abuses from entrepreneurial endeavors that don’t have government oversight (even though our own government, especially the DoD is the largest polluter on the planet). I think that some Dutch expertise could be sought out as they have had plenty of experience of dealing with waterways WHILE balancing ecological impacts with automated systems for loading and off-loading:

A Dutch consortium of nearly 20 partners launched a project this month to study and demonstrate the technical possibilities for autonomous shipping, in the framework of the Smart Shipping Challenge 2017.

While there are attempts at innovation in the waterways of the US, the leader of this can not be the status-quo based government that is usually ony worried about their “cut” (revenue) instead of providing the market with some technological solutions that not only improve efficiencies but actually disrupt the market enough with some brilliant technologies that drop the cost of transport while being sensitive to the environment.

This can be done

SF1