The Chris Townsend Show

Political Cornerby Stephen Thompson, posted on Fri, Jun. 27, 2008

Infrastructure, Infrastructure Can you say Infrastructure….

In all aspects of business. Successful companies need to build a platforms and foundations for idea's to grow and prosper.
It's like building a professional sports organization. Let's take Baseball. You have minor league teams and Farm teams. For those teams you have scouts, Coaches, Announcers and facilities crews. You have to build teams with good talent and good support structures to ensure success.
You could not go out today and start a professional baseball team without having the correct infrastructure.    So if you wanted to change the organization you don't just fire a couple of players. You redesign the organization for permanent change over a period of time.
So why is it so hard for our politicians to get this simple fact regarding this Energy crisis?

         McCain offers a 300 million dollar government prize for a small Battery to run your car.
         Obama offers us Bio and Nuclear power for alternative fuels.

But I ask you… Does your Car run on batteries right now by it's self?
Do you know why you need so much Nuclear power?    What is it going to support? Our problem is not homes having enough power?
I was speaking with your host and one of your Favorite sports commentators and we figured it out.   WE NEED PROPER infrastructure. We need a basic a high speed train system like Europe, but for the US.

We consume 20 million gallons of oil a day. That comes out to 4 gallons a day per house.   If we could reduce our oil dependency by 25 percent , we could drop our usage to 15 millions gallons a day. Which would be a savings at 680 millions dollars a day. In one week at current prices we would save 4.72 Billion in just one week. In one month we could save almost 20 billion.   That is more money than we are paying per month in Iraq for the war.
Let's build a bullet train from major areas of a state to another population area.

Now ask your self why in New York, Florida and California has this not happened yet? Because it is expensive, and the State Governments are trying to fund these projects themselves without federal guarantees.   To give you an example of our idea.    A bullet train leaving San Francisco at a speed of 220 miles per hour would get to Los Angeles in 2.5 hours. This trip would take you 6 hours by car and one hour by plane.    Hell, in Japan they have trains that go 341 miles per hour. At that pace, you could watch the Giants at PacBell Park beat the Dbacks with the game starting at 12:05 and then get on the Train take a 1.5 hour nap, and watch Townsend's Padres get beat by the Dodgers, in Dodger Stadium starting at 7:05.

If we save 1 gallon of gas a day per home, then in one year we could save 240 Billion dollars. The Administration's secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson says, if we, the Government invested 150 billion, we could directly create 500,000 Jobs paying a cost of 300K per job and indirectly creating millions of more jobs. This could really help our economy that blows right now.

Listen, if Chris and I can figure this out? Then why can't the government implement this plan?   What do they think after we have high speed trains that drop carbon emissions for 250,000 tons per day. Save oil usage in the country by 25 percent and create jobs in areas like the central valley in California, where the economy has been murdered. I think rejuvenating the steel factories in Ohio and Pennsylvania and helping furniture companies that make seats for Trains in North Carolina is a great idea and a good way to stimulate the economy. With this plan you will help the timber industry in the North West, the Cement companies from the west coast and not to mention all brewing companies in the midwest selling beers on the train.

So Federal government, don't send me a check for 600 dollars. Come up with an idea that helps all of us and not just a few well position companies.