STRATEGIC ASSETS
Catastrophic Thinking requires America to identify what are strategic assets and system vulnerabilities, and then design policies which can protect against the loss of such assets or systems. For system vulnerabilities, I covered our national debt and the electrical grid in previous blogs. Clearly that should be our first and second concerns. Strategic assets are responsibilities of our national government. Food, water, shelter, energy, safety, law and order, and national defense, obviously. Even in a catastrophe, these should be preserved and/or restored.
What are strategic assets that we use every day? If we use it, we should pay for the privilege. Hence, to the extent we need to fix things, we should fund the fix with social security instead of just squandering social security surpluses on entitlements, like we do now. Once social security invests in strategic assets, then social security should treat it like every other investment and expect a 12 per cent return on investment. Why 12 per cent? That’s a six year pay back. But after the first six years, strategic assets are depreciable. So social security will be continually turning over its “profits” into new strategic assets. Also, even if social security does not get involved by investing, there should be a use tax on the strategic assets, also to go to social security.
The most obvious strategic assets are the national electrical grid, energy resources like natural gas, and water, i.e., the utilities. By assessing a ten per cent use tax on them, we will force our profligate consumers to quit wasting these limited resources, while simultaneously providing adequate financing to upgrading our infrastructure. Next is the interstate highway system, which could easily be converted to a national network of toll roads, raising funds for financing transportation improvements, and reducing the financial pressure on the general funds, let alone kicking out ten percent to social security. Some may protest that gasoline taxes do that, but they aren’t thinking about the financing threat posed by electric vehicles. Airports and harbor ports are strategic assets too. The federal government already assesses fees for their use, but the fees should be great enough to maintain the infrastructure, plus of course, ten per cent to social security.
Some strategic assets are not thought of as such but need to be. Crossing the border of our country is a strategic asset. Let’s charge a large fee once a year to frequent border crossers of $1,000 to pay for border patrols, the gateways in the wall to enter America, and the costs of monitoring border crossers. That’s $1,100 with the use tax and turns our borders into a revenue source instead of a drain. It also makes illegal crossings a felony for evading the fee. Right now, thousands of illegal crossings are made by paying thousands of dollars to human traffickers. It’s time to assess those guilty criminals the whole costs and stop this reprehensible exploitation of civilians. Remember, Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion, and not for murder. Fees and taxes give law enforcement a powerful weapon to use against illegal activities. The proposed fee is charged whether they cross once or many times. To cross, you must prove you are not a fugitive from justice, that you have your verified identification papers, and that you are properly vaccinated.
Other types of Strategic Asset are farmland and single-family residences. These must be protected from foreign investors. Such people or corporations may have money but lack acting in the best interests of America. There was a proposal to sell the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to foreign investors. Maybe it happened. Either way, Catastrophic Thinking in policy formation requires these bad actors to divest their American holdings. If American needs it for its own people, it is time to assert ourselves.
Consider strategic assets like medical masks and vaccines. In the Covid-19 pandemic, we found out that these strategic assets were being manufactured overseas to save money. That’s just as bad as letting foreigners buy up American assets. If it’s a strategic asset, it should be made in America, including all the component parts.
Finally, some strategic assets are like choke points. Rare metals may come primarily from China. We need supplies of rare metals for things like renewable energy sources. Look it up. There are not enough rare metals for the world to switch to renewable energy. The so-called “green” movement has not applied Catastrophic Thinking to their ill-advised plans to switch to renewables, while it isn’t feasible to do so.
Finally, we must protect our Strategic Assets from our short-sighted and opportunistic leaders. There must be safeguards built in to protect us from leaders who will sell out America for their short-term political self-interests. Both parties had leaders suggesting we suspend the social security tax to ease up “economic hardships” voters were facing. Nonsense. Leaders have sold our strategic oil reserves to ease gas prices, in an effort to manipulate market prices in what they perceive to be a popular move. We need to build in protections against these types of leaders by a supermajority of state legislatures ratifying the policy. (Congress has proven itself not to be equal to such challenges.)