John Lounsbury

The Top 5 Looming Financial Issues

I would propose to attack the energy crisis. As a nation we need to decide which (or all?) of the following should be pursued: solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, biofuels, coal, oil, natural gas....

The decisions made should make sure we do not sacrifice our future for current convenience. That is the austerity that may have to be faced. Otherwise, I will "get mine" and "my grandchildren will be so brilliant they can figure it out" will be the modus operandi.

The government can only do a small part of what needs to be done to get to a sustainable future. Private, even individual, enterprise will carry the load. The government did not invent the automobile, the airplane and our modern transportation vehicles. The government did, however provide most of the infrastructure that enabled them to become engines of our economy. A different model is the railroad system, where both vehicles and infrastructure have been predominantly private. Without an effective form of government cooperation, the rail system has not been able to prosper against the competition from other transportation means. This is an example of the law of unintended consequences. Overly supporting one area of transportation (public highways and airports) without equivalent support for railroads has not necessarily put us in the best competitive position.

So what I hope to see develop are government policies that enable all future energy sources to be developed and implemented by the ingenuity and entreprenurial resources of the U.S.A., while making sure that the full diversity of energy production needed for economic vitality is not thwarted. Our policy will be effective if it can get us to an energy condition that is sustainable for the next 150 years, as the fossil fuel age has been for the past 150 years.

This may be too idealistic, because we have to overcome the predispositions of polititians pandering for their next re-election. We have to overcome the influence of the lobbies, current and future, that will try to maximize their own interests to the detriment of all the others. This country cannot have a good future if it is dominated by the oil lobby, the wind lobby, the solar lobby, the nuclear lobby, the coal lobby, the environmental lobby, etc individually or in any sub-set. All lobbies should have the right to make input, open and publicly, but none should dominate the others.

Somehow we need to find a way allow the path to the sustainable future. I feel the path will be torturous if it is driven by the next quarter income statement, the next year's profits and the next five years' profits. Giving up smaller near-term profits for sustainable future longevity is the austerity I refer to. If our current and future titans of the energy business focus on 10, 20 and 30 year business plans the outcome for our economy may be much rosier. Government policy can influence the time scale of private enterprise business plans.

As far as auserity for the average citizen, that's coming whether we face the energy crisis or not. If we face the crisis and solve it, the austerity ends in 10 years or so. If we never face it, austerity could go on forever.