I’ve been a fan of Dan Roam ever since I read his lovely little book, The Back of the Napkin.
He almost never “rants,” something I manage to do on a regular basis. He did recently in a blog entry called ”
Fixing the USA… or tilting at windmills?” It’s lots of fun . . .
First, let’s map out the biggest immediate issues we’re looking at: the financial sector, automotive manufacturing, the environment, and American infrastructure. (There are a bunch of other issues we’ve temporarily forgotten about, but they’ll be back.)
Rather than looking at them individually, let’s see where they overlap:
That’s interesting; several ideas emerge:
1) Where finance overlaps autos, we have a partial credit solution. Rather than giving more bailout money to Detroit, why not make payments from the $700 Billion to the financial sector contingent on Wall Street freeing up credit for GM and consumer auto loans?
2) Where autos overlap the environment, why not make payments to Detroit contingent on making more efficient hybrid cars that people actually want to buy?
3) Where the environment overlaps finance, why not get serious about developing the green economy?
4) And where they all intersect, why not make all government payouts go to helping the world’s (former) greatest manufacturers shift the shut-down assembly lines towards start building the windmills and solar panels that will power the future?
It seems to me there is a lot more that makes sense when the pieces are looked at in concert rather than alone. All the sudden potential solutions that have a long-term impact emerge.
I think I can sleep now.
Tags: DanRoam, The Back of the Napkin, TARP, Bailout, Financial Meltdown, Decision Making
