After watching or reading the news, it doesn't take much to get a sense that the economy isn't so bright these days. Never before in my lifetime (only 28 yrs) have I ever encountered such negative, pessimism about the economy.
Here, where I live in North Texas, we seem to barely be holding off the soon-to-be-declared recession that is gripping the nation. Yes, we've been lucky here so far with natural gas royalties and all things Barnett Shale related, but even that opportunity is drying up as natural gas prices plummet, for now. Still, despite that, around here, houses are still being built, albeit, at a slower pace, apartments are still being constructed and hotels are still popping up.
For Texas, there are still lots of opportunities for economic growth. This of course, is assuming that the financial markets continue to see some loosening as Uncle Sam lives up to his promise or buying up bad debts and restructuring the financial industry. Texas has a slight upper hand here as two things go into play: housing prices, which, here, never got over-inflated to begin with, and the fact that Texas has had to endure this sort of thing before relatively recently through the real estate crunch and the savings and loan crisis of the 1980's. Perhaps, because of the learned lessons from that time, Texas banks have been better prepared this time around, and didn't make as many risky sub-prime loans that seemed to have plagued the larger financial institutions of the US. An example of this is Frost Bank, which was bold enough to turn down federal bailout money.
Another important contributor to the health of the Texas economy is due to the diversification of the economy that has developed in the last 20 yrs. When energy prices plummeted in the 80's the Texas economy suffered, and really only rebounded thanks to growth in the technology and service industries. This growth was of course spurred by the relatively cheap cost of business, lower cost of living and the availability of higher education for its citizens. In the early 2000's, when technology peaked, energy prices began steadily rising, resulting in the first significant new growth in the energy sector in over 20 years. This more than offset any losses due to any decline in the IT industry. Texas was also able to maintain generally lower costs of living due to lower housing costs (thanks to the seemingly endless amounts of land available and availability of cheaper labor mostly from bordering Mexico.) Texas has also enjoyed some of the lowest energy and transportation costs (thanks, of course, to the energy industry itself.)
Because of these advantages, along with business friendly laws, many companies and organizations have either relocated their headquarters to town, or they've brought in significant production facilities. With many companies looking to save on their bottom line, I won't be surprised to see more offices opened up down here. Still, there is a possibility that Texas will eventually succumb to the recession forces that are roaming around the land, but even so, it should occur at much less of a blow to the economy than in other states. Texans could all benefit from a slowing of economic growth to give us the opportunity to catch up on building new infrastructure to help serve the growing population. If President-Elect Obama's economic plan is passed through Congress after his inauguration, Texas should stand a good chance to see some funding come from long awaited and overdue projects that we've been needing for years. Hopefully, all states will have a fair share as well, proportional to their needs, but, of course that's all in the eyes of policy makers. Another great opportunity that Texas should benefit from, is from the growing need for "green" energy. If you didn't know otherwise, your intuition would likely give you the idea that this would harm the Texas economy since it has been so dependent on fossil fuels. Thankfully, Texas has not only been blessed with a plethora of fossil fuels, but also a treasure trove of potential green energy sources from biowaste energy in East Texas, to biofuels, such as biodiesel, grown in the open plains of Central Texas, to wind and solar resources in West Texas.
The bottom line here is this: because Texas won't see as severe of an economic downturn as the rest of the nation and since Texas still has a lot of untapped resources that are compatible to our desires to meet our future's greener energy needs, Texas will be poised to take the lead with great economic growth opportunities to economic for the state, which should benefit the rest of the US and the global economy as well. Our abundance of energy will be met however with new demand for it (despite our future gains in conservation and efficiency.) We'll have new needs like desalinating sea water and urban food production along with newer types of transportation to water, feed and move a population that will nearly double in size with each passing generation. The key is for the US to take this economic turmoil and use it to shift gears from a 20th century economy to a 21st century model and that can start right here with Texas.
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
New Challenges for President-Elect Barack Obama
What this means to me: First, I'll say that I'm a young man of fairly conservative views and beliefs, and as you can imagine, I lean Republican more times than not. Now that the election is behind us, I find that its time to pray as a nation.
Not solely because Obama won, as we should all be doing the same if McCain had won, but because we, as a nation still face challenges unprecedented to our generation. Beyond those challenges I see glimpses of the bright future that is upon us with many opportunities of growth and development in this nation and world. For those that didn't receive the victory that you had hoped for, this isn't a time to give up and hang low, instead its a time to stand united behind our new President-elect, Barack Obama. It doesn't mean that you need to sacrifice your moral grounds, it simply means that we need to stand united as a nation. Remember, Barack will have to re-earn our votes in 4 years if he is to want to remain as president. He cannot afford to to move the nation any further left( or right), but forward.
The primary challenge is that we need to turn our economy around. We can do this by investing in newer, emerging, domestic technologies such as solar and wind technologies as well as taking the lead in developing newer transportation technologies and by restoring the balance of trade, primarily by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and upon days of prosperity, yet to come, paying down our debt. In this time of an economic downturn, it is time to retool our factories, in all industries, to become more productive through investment in robotics and information technology and of course better training for all workers. In the factories across America, we have lost jobs to overseas, not because we aren't trainable or willing to work, but because it is simply cheaper to operate overseas. The simple reason for this is because we expect more for wages, better working conditions and environmental standards here which were hard fought for in the 20th century. This is why the Kyoto treaty wasn't signed by the Bush administration, because preserving the environment did not, at that time, take precedent over preserving our competitive advantages. Barack Obama will have the tough challenge of maintaining our standards, while not putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Our only answer to this challenge seems to be answered through technology. Unfortunately, this means that factories will have a staff of a few hundred instead of a few thousand. In the long run, this means that we need to continue to strive for better educational opportunities for all Americans young and old. For the short term, that means that we still have jobs to create to those who have labored long hard hours in mills and factories accross the nation. This will be accomodated through the colossal need to build new infrastucture, and need to upgrade existing energy, transportation and water infrastructure in the US. Let's face it, in the same manner that we can't solely drill our way out of the problem, we can't coninue to drive our way out of one either. In the short term, here we will need to build roads, just as we're going to have to use some more traditional energy sources at home to make it another day. In the long term, we'll have to look to and invest in technologies that have been discussed for decades that have seen little development, proportional to traditional methods that we have been using. (These technologies range from mass-transit and on-demand vehicles to water conservation and desalinations and purification.) We must realize that in tommorow's world we will have many more people living, and competing for the same resources. Our goal here is to learn to use these resources as effeciently as possible. We must also encourage the development of these sytems accross the globe to promote peace, because not doing so means facing a rash of violence as nation competes againts nation for resources like clean drinking water.
The economic prosperity and security of our nation and world do indeed go hand-in hand. We still have a lot of work to create or enable free and democratic nations, with fair governments and free will of all people accross the globe. At the same we must be able to defend our own security and democracy. Here, it is true, we must work with our allies and continue to stand against those who strive to harm us and the people they oppress. At the same time, we must help facilitate the growth and propserity of other nations through a democratic system by leading the way by protecting our values at home and abroad and by preserving and promoting free and fair trade. In Iraq, we must not leave until a good transition can be made to allow the Iraqi people to lead themselves and provide their own security. I think we are approching this as the tide of violence continues to decline. Here, I agreed with the troop surge, and without a doubt that it, along with a better stategy utilizing newer technologies, has worked and we cannot afford to withdraw too quickly. In Afganistan, I feel that our values still aren't fully taking taking root, especially in terms of religious freedom. At the same time, we still have terrorists hiding out in the mountains along the Afganistani and Pakastani borders. If there is one good thing that has resulted in Iraq, it is that we've developed more effective technique to counter terrorism and insurgency. Hopefully, we'll be able to use these methods along with a troop surge there to finish our job of destroying Al-Queda's leadership.
Next, we have unprecepented needs in our medical industry and the nation's health as individuals. It astounds me that the medical industry is still so far behind the information technology curve, that long complicated forms must be filled out again and again just for a simple consultation with a doctor for each doctor or facility. Let us work for better standards for information so that medical care can become efficient at healing instead of proficiently maintaining the overly antiquated bureaucratic system that stands today. Here we need to encourage the development of standardized and secured health information. Doing so will not only provide more effeicient care, with less headaches involved in with getting checked in, but it could help prevent medical errors and allow staff members to focus on caring for patients instead of keeping track of volumes of information. We also need to clean up the corruption of the medical industry and politics. It seems to me that we've become a nation dependent on presriptions with side effects and drugs to counter those side effects. At the same time, we see pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies lobbying politicians motivated for profits rather than better care. Profits are indeed important so that companies can grow, but doing so at the cost of patients health cannot be allowed. We need to make sure that the medical indusrty is translucent in the way that they conduct busness and do research. At the same time, we need to make sure that the agencies that have oversight over the process, do so without favors, cronyism, or biased views. Better medicine and care should be driven by science and research and not politics or profit motivations.
Finally, there are moral issues that we face. More on this when I continue at a later time....
Read More!
Not solely because Obama won, as we should all be doing the same if McCain had won, but because we, as a nation still face challenges unprecedented to our generation. Beyond those challenges I see glimpses of the bright future that is upon us with many opportunities of growth and development in this nation and world. For those that didn't receive the victory that you had hoped for, this isn't a time to give up and hang low, instead its a time to stand united behind our new President-elect, Barack Obama. It doesn't mean that you need to sacrifice your moral grounds, it simply means that we need to stand united as a nation. Remember, Barack will have to re-earn our votes in 4 years if he is to want to remain as president. He cannot afford to to move the nation any further left( or right), but forward.
The primary challenge is that we need to turn our economy around. We can do this by investing in newer, emerging, domestic technologies such as solar and wind technologies as well as taking the lead in developing newer transportation technologies and by restoring the balance of trade, primarily by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and upon days of prosperity, yet to come, paying down our debt. In this time of an economic downturn, it is time to retool our factories, in all industries, to become more productive through investment in robotics and information technology and of course better training for all workers. In the factories across America, we have lost jobs to overseas, not because we aren't trainable or willing to work, but because it is simply cheaper to operate overseas. The simple reason for this is because we expect more for wages, better working conditions and environmental standards here which were hard fought for in the 20th century. This is why the Kyoto treaty wasn't signed by the Bush administration, because preserving the environment did not, at that time, take precedent over preserving our competitive advantages. Barack Obama will have the tough challenge of maintaining our standards, while not putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Our only answer to this challenge seems to be answered through technology. Unfortunately, this means that factories will have a staff of a few hundred instead of a few thousand. In the long run, this means that we need to continue to strive for better educational opportunities for all Americans young and old. For the short term, that means that we still have jobs to create to those who have labored long hard hours in mills and factories accross the nation. This will be accomodated through the colossal need to build new infrastucture, and need to upgrade existing energy, transportation and water infrastructure in the US. Let's face it, in the same manner that we can't solely drill our way out of the problem, we can't coninue to drive our way out of one either. In the short term, here we will need to build roads, just as we're going to have to use some more traditional energy sources at home to make it another day. In the long term, we'll have to look to and invest in technologies that have been discussed for decades that have seen little development, proportional to traditional methods that we have been using. (These technologies range from mass-transit and on-demand vehicles to water conservation and desalinations and purification.) We must realize that in tommorow's world we will have many more people living, and competing for the same resources. Our goal here is to learn to use these resources as effeciently as possible. We must also encourage the development of these sytems accross the globe to promote peace, because not doing so means facing a rash of violence as nation competes againts nation for resources like clean drinking water.
The economic prosperity and security of our nation and world do indeed go hand-in hand. We still have a lot of work to create or enable free and democratic nations, with fair governments and free will of all people accross the globe. At the same we must be able to defend our own security and democracy. Here, it is true, we must work with our allies and continue to stand against those who strive to harm us and the people they oppress. At the same time, we must help facilitate the growth and propserity of other nations through a democratic system by leading the way by protecting our values at home and abroad and by preserving and promoting free and fair trade. In Iraq, we must not leave until a good transition can be made to allow the Iraqi people to lead themselves and provide their own security. I think we are approching this as the tide of violence continues to decline. Here, I agreed with the troop surge, and without a doubt that it, along with a better stategy utilizing newer technologies, has worked and we cannot afford to withdraw too quickly. In Afganistan, I feel that our values still aren't fully taking taking root, especially in terms of religious freedom. At the same time, we still have terrorists hiding out in the mountains along the Afganistani and Pakastani borders. If there is one good thing that has resulted in Iraq, it is that we've developed more effective technique to counter terrorism and insurgency. Hopefully, we'll be able to use these methods along with a troop surge there to finish our job of destroying Al-Queda's leadership.
Next, we have unprecepented needs in our medical industry and the nation's health as individuals. It astounds me that the medical industry is still so far behind the information technology curve, that long complicated forms must be filled out again and again just for a simple consultation with a doctor for each doctor or facility. Let us work for better standards for information so that medical care can become efficient at healing instead of proficiently maintaining the overly antiquated bureaucratic system that stands today. Here we need to encourage the development of standardized and secured health information. Doing so will not only provide more effeicient care, with less headaches involved in with getting checked in, but it could help prevent medical errors and allow staff members to focus on caring for patients instead of keeping track of volumes of information. We also need to clean up the corruption of the medical industry and politics. It seems to me that we've become a nation dependent on presriptions with side effects and drugs to counter those side effects. At the same time, we see pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies lobbying politicians motivated for profits rather than better care. Profits are indeed important so that companies can grow, but doing so at the cost of patients health cannot be allowed. We need to make sure that the medical indusrty is translucent in the way that they conduct busness and do research. At the same time, we need to make sure that the agencies that have oversight over the process, do so without favors, cronyism, or biased views. Better medicine and care should be driven by science and research and not politics or profit motivations.
Finally, there are moral issues that we face. More on this when I continue at a later time....
Read More!
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