Three Million Jobs in Three Months

Foreword

In a very real sense, this little book is offered to any community or government agency that is LOOKING FORWARD!. I am an artist, not a scientist, so many of my ideas are simple, yet require little more than the will to move ahead. Artists think outside the box, and financially speaking, live in a box! We know how to make something beautiful and useful using very few and inexpensive materials.

When looking at our devastated global bank accounts, it is clear there is nowhere to turn but back to the source of all prior wealth—the land, the water, the air and the people. The job ideas proposed go directly to these main sources and find ways to quickly generate esteem- building jobs with the resources at hand.

Scientists, planners and politicians will work with technology and business over time while small groups will create a new base of jobs that will improve living and increase productivity immediately. Many tasks and programs included here are not new, but they are reintroduced along with old concepts like “elbow grease” and “putting one’s shoulder to the wheel”.

I’ve grown tired of hearing the excuse that “there is no money”. The will to accomplish anything is the first step in manifesting it. Money has been lost in unscrupulous management of investments and outright fraud and stealing but not our entire cache. Many people still have the financial means to invest in the future of our country and its workers have strength, motivation and imagination. There is much work to do and we will improve our country and increase our happiness and well-being by moving forward!

Enjoy!





TABLE OF CONTENTS:

2 Housing Leads the Economy

4 The Edible Landscape

5 Attended Public Restrooms.

6 School of Living Well

8 Bite the Bullet Trains

9 Addressing Change

10 Stone Soup

11 School Lunch

12 Mother Nature Says Clean Up Your Room!

14 What Comes Around, Goes Around

16 Who You Gonna Call? Task Busters!

18 Send a Letter—Save a Job & Mend a Heart

20 Harness Your Work-out!.

22 Department of the Arts



~Housing Leads the Economy!

The strength of America is revealed in its history of encouraging and supporting home ownership. Land grants and government-backed home and farm financing gave a stake and a hand-up to citizens who in turn worked hard and invested in the future of their families and their country. After World War II, the government helped returning military and their families get started by providing housing programs where the slogan was “In, Up and Out”. Public housing sheltered people for one year, during which time job training, securing employment and permanent housing were offered and accomplished.

In the following decades, private lenders took a bigger role in determining who could purchase housing. Strange and confusing lending instruments were created, to the detriment of the home ownership vision America was based upon. As fewer people were able to own their homes, pride in neighborhoods and communities declined. Public housing programs that fostered dependence were created. Generations of welfare families became trapped in a cycle of deteriorating schools, and a lack of jobs, and opportunities in their areas. Unscrupulous lenders and greedy people took the opportunities opened by financial deregulation to make bad loans that were unsustainable. People who purchased with good intentions, reasonable down payments, and sufficient documented income have been left stranded in deteriorating neighborhoods with depreciating housing prices.

This situation must be remedied quickly. As foreclosures increase, many deeply discounted homes are being purchased by people who are not U.S. citizens. This will have an impact on our democracy in the future if it is not balanced by an easy and straight-forward first time buyers program for Americans. I call my Home Ownership Program “The Irrefutable Equation” or “3 x 3 + XYZ = Housing Leads the Economy”.

A first time buyers program requiring a 3% down payment and a fixed 3% interest rate would allow many Generation X, Y and Zs, and others, to purchase their first home. If they or their families could not find the down payment, an application would be made to a group of local investors. Local citizen investors would ask for recommendations from the community as to the character of the potential home buyers. Local people would give testimonials about the loan applicants and would vouch for their ability to pay. Investors would make a solid 3% return on their investment and have the assurance that stable people dedicated to the community would stay in place. With interest rates falling close to 3% right now, and so many foreclosures and abandoned properties sitting empty, this seems like a wise approach for both local and national policy makers. Reinstate the Downpayment Assistance Program which was removed with changes to FHA regulations in October 2008!

Housing does lead the economy directly by creating citizens with a reason to care about their street and town, and also by the stimulus it gives to almost every manufacturing and service based industry. As new buyers acquire homes, they need refrigerators, drapes, sprinkler systems, artwork and eventually more schools, more services, etc. They pay taxes and keep up the housing stock. Nothing is sadder or is ruined more quickly than a vacant house. Let’s help OUR kids buy properties to strengthen America’s future.



~T.E.L.L.: The Edible Landscape Lessons

Every home or neighborhood can create a garden. This might mean taking out thirsty lawns and replacing with soil, or reclaiming a vacant lot or asking permission from a neighbor to use untended land. These gardens would be used as places to teach lessons about edible landscape, demonstrating how simply and abundantly food can be produced. Everyone learns how to till the soil, how to amend it and improve it by composting food scraps and garden debris. Composting takes pressure off home appliances such as garbage disposals and sewer treatment while enriching the gardens. Lessons about planting seed, tending young seedlings, and using non toxic methods to control insects and other plant infestations can be learned.

By growing their own vegetables and tending fruit and nut tress, the neighborhood would be less likely to tolerate use of chemicals on plants. There would be less toxic chemicals and fertilizers to pollute the air and get washed down storm drains into creeks, rivers and oceans. If rain water collection and containment systems and government approved gray water systems could be constructed for each house or area, demand on precious fresh water and need for expensive water treatment would decrease, saving money and having a positive environmental impact. Every day millions of gallons of fresh, treated water are flushed away. Every new home could be designed to collect rain water from roofs, and also have storage for old bath, shower and wash water, so only the old, second-hand water is used in the final outgoing flush.

Home and community gardens will increase local, reliable food supplies, teach conservation and healthy growing techniques, encourage sharing and friendships, strengthen neighborhood pride and productivity, reduce the use of chemicals, create beauty and get people in touch with nature’s cycles and ways.

Edible landscape will teach us about the highest and best use of resources, make us think about the origins of our food and help us appreciate what we eat. Garden consultants, who teach beginners how to start and maintain the gardens, would be employed initially or retained on an ongoing basis to grow more healthy food that doesn’t have to be trucked in for those who receive it.



~Attended Public Restrooms

This might be a more popular idea with the right public relations spin, some humor and a great design campaign!. Who among us hasn’t been stranded in a town or city with the need “to go” and not a facility in sight?!? I think of the forbearance of shop keepers and the much beleaguered corporations, like Starbucks and McDonald’s, who have borne the burden which should actually be the responsibility of each municipality.

In Europe, the attended public restroom is the answer. It is not a glamorous job, but the attendants are paid, plus restroom users are required to tip. It’s not exactly a pay toilet, which is a system prone to vandalism and an object of anger. With a human attendant present, there is an orderliness, cleanliness and civility to the system. Perhaps public restroom users could purchase a “Pass Card” and receive a free coffee or fries when the restroom use card is filled! Certainly merchants and restaurant owners would be “relieved” to not be the only facilities available.



~The School of Living Well

This job program would employ elderly, disabled and middle age people to teach the skills that are being lost. Older people are usually quite stable and very knowledgeable. . They listen well and are filled with stories about the past and wisdom about life. Our culture has created many lonely, unemployed people and has disregarded the value of the skills these individuals have acquired and honed over a lifetime. It is time to capture this wonderful resource and give our elders the chance to teach us. They can help us regain balance and work practices that sustained the land, reduced waste and made good use of everything, including people!

The Schools of Living Well would be government subsidized and free to those who wanted to learn. The lessons could be made available on video tape for the homebound and archived for a skills library. The instructors could be paid a stipend that would supplement other benefits like social security and SSI disability. The Schools would teach life skills, like managing a household budget, keeping tax and financial records, balancing a checking account, how to save . They could teach penmanship (a dying art!), arithmetic without a calculator, map reading (a skill being replaced by navigation devices) and how to fix mechanical things. How to repair a roof, can and preserve foods, basic home maintenance, how to insulate and cut energy costs, how to stretch a budget, how to shop for food bargains and make nutritious meals without much money. How to clean a window without chemicals, how to do almost anything without chemicals or expensive products! How to build a fence, make a barrel, repair a garden hose, basic car repairs, make some soap, how to set the table, how to wash and sterilize dishes without a dishwasher. How to make a feather quilt. How to keep chickens and collect their eggs. How to use everything and not throw so much away.

Storytelling and learning about life and morality through the tales of our ancestors is pleasant. Being read to and having someone who can talk intelligently about subjects that young people or others might not understand is real caring. Teachers would be available as sounding boards for discussing choices and decisions. They would offer support, encouragement and wisdom. Living well does not mean spending more. Living well means appreciating what we have and using it in a wise way. The best definition of happiness may be “wanting what you have, not having what you want”.

The Schools of Living Well would be an oasis in a world run amok with consumerism, and would help open the eyes of those faithful consumers to a new world where buying things is not as great as knowing things, doing things and creating things. The motto of the Schools for Living Well might be “Work is Love Manifested” and their challenge would be to teach tasks, values, sustenance and finding meaning in the every day.

A side benefit to the Schools for Living Well would be a great decrease in mental illness and depression. It is my belief that gainfully employed people with meaningful work and social contacts are healthier. It is sad to sit home and feel useless, especially when it’s not true! The pharmaceutical solutions being offered in this country are a great disservice and a tragedy. To feel really good, we need to feel proud of our accomplishments and contributions to society every day. Good government will find ways for citizens to be involved and make a difference. Having many helpers on hand will also lower the incidences of drug use and behaviors stemming from negligent and just plain “lostness”. Let those who have traveled a lifetime help find direction for those starting out.



~“Bite the Bullet” Trains

This could be the biggest public works project every attempted! Build solar powered trains on top of every major freeway in the country!!! So I said it—what is obvious to every child and probably preposterous to every scientist. Well, it’s so wacky it might just work! From Paris to the South of France, the wondrous Bullet Train transports thousands of people every day at a low cost, saving time, expensive petrol and reducing exhaust fumes. Why not in America?

The top of each train car would be outfitted with solar panels. Traveling great distances over a country filled with a variety of weather would assure energy accumulation. Since every major freeway, like Interstate 5 that runs on the West Coast from the Canadian to our Mexican borders, is already a wide and relatively straight corridor or conduit, why not design the trains to travel above them on elevated tracks?

Many scientists will say why this can’t be done, but I say—Why not try? We need to find a way to get people out of their cars, especially when we can embrace the efficiency of traveling longer distances in comfort with less expense if we had high speed trains running to and from major cities. A separate taxi or ground transportation system could be devised to web out from the main destinations and take people to their final stop.



~Addressing Change

Across America, we’re having trouble finding each other! Ever go to deliver something and not be able to see a street address? It makes you wonder how emergency response teams find people when time counts the most. Every house, building and business should have their address very visibly displayed on the structure and on the curb.

Artists, students and other able-bodied people could be employed to stencil the addresses on the curbs and to affix an array of letter choices onto the structures. If a home or property owner wanted something special designed, the artists would make a custom job with colors, styles and perhaps even glow in the dark paint! A municipality, a non-profit or a private company could issue the permits or could be the point of contact when property owners want the service. Fire, Police and Medical response teams would be thrilled to not lose precious time and lives when looking for the right address. Friends and workers would be grateful to not get lost. Also it shows a point of pride to proudly display your address. It shows care for the neighborhood, and well kept properties are in themselves a crime deterrent.



~Stone Soup

Do you remember the story of Stone Soup? A person put a large stone in a pot of boiling water and told the neighbors he was making Stone Soup. One neighbor said “Oh, I have an onion”, the next had a carrot, and so on, until finally a real soup was created. Stone Soup is the title I gave to a jobs program based around gleaning unharvested foods. We are fortunate that we don’t have to start from nothing!

So much fallen fruit and unharvested vegetables grace our lands and our cities every autumn. A little is gathered by trusty food bank gleaners, but without a larger organized labor source a lot of potential food is not captured. Also, because so few areas have locally owned or controlled canneries and lack the means to dry, preserve or can the windfall, the decisions about harvest, destination and price of food is held in the hands of major food companies.

Stone Soup includes the following components:

1) Gleaners and gatherers paid by small farms, individual land owners or government agencies bring windfall foods to locally owned or community operated canning and preservation stations.

2) Gleaners also deliver to government certified restaurants and food preparation/distribution centers. These restaurants and centers prepare the gleaned foods in healthy, economical ways and sell meals directly to their patrons who can afford it. A portion of the profit is used to underwrite food stamps programs for low income and the disadvantaged.

3) Through Stone Soup, the State and National Food Subsidy Programs are amended. Use of food stamps would be allowed at restaurants and centers using the gleaned foods and would also be useable at any growers markets that sell fresh produce. In our local Growers Market, the use of government food stamps was approved so that people could buy fresh and organic produce with them. In this day and age, it seems quite practical that food stamps should be accepted at restaurants serving healthy, affordable meals. Is it logical, reasonable or kind to give the poor and homeless the raw, uncooked or unprepared foods that are often distributed at Food Banks? Many recipients lack the knowledge or means of cooking or preparing what’s been given. It makes more sense to provide a hot, balanced meal sold directly to the Food Stamp recipient, and it would also insure less fraud (food stamps being traded for legal tender in order to buy alcohol, tobacco, etc.) and get more people fed healthily at a lower cost. Also since the majority of Americans eat often at restaurants, this is following a conforming, socializing trend.

4) Another aspect of Stone Soup would be the local pre-planning of what crops to plant and grow in regional gardens and in the many non-profit farms and growing groups. If a community is importing a great deal of their food, but has the physical capacity to grow it close to home, surveys would be conducted to determine what could be grown locally, thereby decreasing transportation costs and stimulating local economies. Neighboring communities could network and trade crops in areas of close proximity with different climates.

5) As communities and regions identified crops they’d successfully grown and shared, regional Seed Banks would be developed in both rural and urban communities. Much like foreign oil sources holding consumers hostage to high prices, large seed and chemical companies control us through hybrid seeds (that have to be purchased new each year because plants don’t produce viable seed). With the reduction of seed varieties we are losing the means of producing our own food. Securing the safety of our local and regional agricultural futures by saving seeds is of grave importance.



~School Lunch

This job program is a mini Stone Soup idea that also would incorporate aspects of The Edible Landscape. Kids are great emulators of fashion, so let’s make sustainability really cool! Kids love status and identifying with the best athletes, musicians, film stars and political figures so how about putting the best minds to the task of popularizing growing and eating health food! Every school would be a site of a garden and products from that garden could be grown and sold at local markets to raise funds for extra curricular activities. Instead of the Prom Queen, go back to the Corn Queen and harvest festivals of the past updated with modern coolness!

Foods grown at the schools could be featured in the lunch menu. Teaching about health through good food choices and giving power to students to decide what, where and how to organize their agricultural efforts and how those fit in with school and seasonal activities could become hip!?!



~Mother Nature Says Clean Up Your Room!

When I was a kid, my mother was strict about chores. And if our bedrooms weren’t clean, she’d take out all the dresser drawers of all seven kids and dump them in the middle of a room! Then we had to put everything back in neat and good order. Addressing global climate change looks like that kind of immense, chaotic task, but we will get through it one step at a time. Here’s some things we can all do to help. Maybe some of these tasks will generate extra allowance money for school age children.

• Have an energy audit for your home and business by contacting your local utilities providers.

• Switch your home to a renewable energy source. www.epa.gov/greenpower/locator/index.htm

• Cut down on consumption (buy used products, turn off lights, etc) http://noimpactman.typepad.com

• Move your thermostat down 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer (saves 2,000 pounds of CO2 annually!)

• Turn off, and if possible, unplug, electronics when not in use

• Buy Organic, Buy Local!

• Change the Light bulbs in your house to energy-saving bulbs save 55 pounds of carbon dioxide

emissions per year!) www.asimpleswitch.com

• Recycle!!! (save 1,000 pounds of CO2 annually!)

• Line dry your clothes (save 720 pounds of CO2 annually)

• Take the bus or rideshare (saves 800 pounds of CO@ a year)

• Use green cleaning products. www.seventhgen.com

• Use recycled paper and plant new tree

• Celebrate Earth Day! www.earthday.net

• Get Involved! http://environmentaldefense.org, www.greenhousenet.org, www.votesolar.org,

www.change.gov, www.house.gov/writerep, www.sierraclub.org, www.transitiiontowns.org ,

www.epa.gov/greenpower/locator/index.htm



~What Comes Around, Goes Around

Anytime you spend less to get the materials needed for what you do, it’s a big help. *Transition Towns program, developed in the United Kingdom, is helping communities and cities re-localize their economies and break their dependence on oil. Peak oil has happened—that means we’ve already used more oil than is left. The quick burn-off of fossil fuels has greatly endangered our environment, atmosphere, our health and the well-being of creatures on land and in the oceans.

What comes around, goes around means finding a way to pass on what is left from your project or production. For example, a small community with a large repertory theatre and lots of artists found itself with an abundance of fabric scraps from their costume department. The scraps are picked up by an artist who takes them to her studio mates and other artists. The artists make things to sell or use the scraps for art class materials. What the artists can’t use is given to people who make paper—they are delighted to have small scraps to turn into paper pulp for high rag content papers. Really unusable scraps go to the printmakers who always need cloth to wipe their inky printing plates and for clean up.

Children who grew up after World War II and until the 1960’s (which brought more prosperity and “time-saving” devices and plastics), were taught to save everything. We washed out glass milk bottles and saved cardboard to make toys and playthings, and used it to go “hill sliding”. We collected bottles for the penny deposit. We made huge rubber band balls and string and paper were never thrown away. Shoes and clothes were handed down to younger siblings, cousins, or neighbor kids. We took care of our things because we knew there was little money to replace them. Our parents took buses to work and the family car was only used for a dire trip to the doctor or a big grocery trip once a week. People weren’t shy to borrow an egg or some butter from a neighbor, then take them something else as a thank you. We made gifts for people out of whatever was at hand. We learned to sew our clothes and embroider dish towels and baby clothes so they’d be pretty as well as functional. We rung out, washed, hung out and folded cloth diapers by the hundreds. We mowed the grass with a push mower and used the grass clippings for mulching the flower beds.

In the 21st century we can re-embrace saving as spiritual practice. A friend who’s raising geese has blessed me with down and feathers to make quilts for sale. Feather quilts make it possible to sleep without running the heater at all during the night making for big savings. As I write this I have a distant memory of my father’s voice telling me and my many siblings—“What da ya think? We own PG& E?!!! Turn off some lights! And put on a sweater if you’re cold!”



~Task Busters

“Who you gonna call? Task Busters!” There’s lots of jokes about changing light bulbs but it’s no joke when you’re alone, eighty years old and have vertigo. Task Busters is a trained, affordable, bonded and insured work force who comes to help with a variety of tasks. Each community establishes, through their City government or a non-profit organization, a clearinghouse where the people needing help call in and an appropriate Task Buster is dispatched to them.

The Task Clearing House would bill the client and pay the worker. Some workers would be regular, permanent employees, so the client could request the same familiar Task Buster. There could also be part time and temporary employees, for when work loads increased.

When I think of so many things that are getting harder for me to do, and the extraordinary expense and waiting period to get help from private companies, I really wonder what elderly people do. For example, to have someone clean the gutters of leaves would cost $100 and I couldn’t get an appointment for over a week. A few shingles blew off the roof in a wind storm, and that was going to cost $200 just to replace them. If I asked someone from the neighborhood or a friend, they might get hurt then I’d have an insurance issue. If I waited and a huge rain storm came, I might have roof damage.

When too much ice accumulates, when you can’t shovel the driveway. When you have to pull the refrigerator or dryer out to clean or it came unplugged. When the hedge is too high to trim and you’re afraid to get on a ladder. What something heavy needs to be picked up or dropped off. What if there’s an important errand and you’re can’t go out of the house. Smart, young, capable, trustworthy, affordable help is needed! What a perfect job program for high schools or colleges to get involved with. What a great way a non-profit could have an ongoing revenue source. What a wonderful service for a City to offer its seniors and aging Baby Boomers! How nice for people who need work, or a second part-time income source, to know there’s always work to be done!



~Harness Your Work-Out

In the old days, power was measured by the horse. The strength or ability of an engine was initially described based on how many horses it would take to produce the same speed, pulling power or complete a task. When horses, oxen or other beasts of burden were unavailable, unless people had harnessed some wind, water or sun power, it came down to human power to get the work done.

These days lots of people exercise. They hike, do aerobics, kick boxing, swimming, tennis, Nautilus equipment, treadmills, stationary and moving bicycles. Housework and yard work don’t count as exercise, although when most people worked on the farms and factories doing hard physical labor, the need or energy for “working out” were scarce. A few innovators have come up with athletic shoes with a batteries that stores energy and some designers have shown fashions where the wearer generates power to recharge their cell phone, their walkman and maybe heat their electric jacket.

Dance floors have been designed to capture the vibrations of dancing and store that energy. Smart homes can use body heat and other activities inside to meet part of the home’s energy needs. If these ideas were expanded and we could acquire, save and use energy generated directly from our daily activities, it would cut our consumption of fossil fuels.

A health club or gym could be a model program for this type of energy generation. All the equipment would collect generated energy. The lap pool could capture energy created by the wave action. Gym shoes with batteries could be used to play tennis, then emptied of stored energy after the game.

Has anyone ever created a way to collect the energy created by turning car tires? Although the car would need a primary fuel source, this could be a secondary energy collection goal. What other ways could we harness our work-outs and our travels? For example, would it be possible to install energy-capturing systems on or under pavement heavily traveled by cars? Inventors—put on your thinking caps!!!



~Send a Letter, Save a Job—or Mend a Heart!

We are vulnerable due to our new technologies! And we are losing the ability to contact each other except through cell phones or email. The old fashioned modes of communicating are a boon to our security and we should be thinking seriously of how we can preserve the best of established systems, even as we embrace the new.

The U.S. Postal Service is a proud gift of our Founding Fathers. It is the only non-technological means we have of contacting and keeping track of every household. The phone land line is also more secure and enduring in times of crisis, or disaster, than satellite-dependent cell phones. How will people find each other if we abandon the home delivery of mail and rely totally on sattelites and power grids for our entire communications systems?

Every year less and less letters and pieces of mail are sent. More jobs are being lost, less mail carriers are needed and as they retire, their diminished routes are being divided among the remaining workers. Yet, in the event of a communication breakdown, this and perhaps radio waves will be the main way that government will be able to contact its citizens. We need to preserve the U.S. Postal system and have back up communications in place. Also sending a letter might cheer a heart. People like to receive Valentines, clippings, recipes and notes of endearment from their loved ones so let’s keep the mail coming!



~Department of the Arts and a Department of the Environment

We really need a Department of the Arts and a Department of the Environment. If a former president can create a Department of Homeland Security, then our new president should be able add these two. (Maybe the Department of Homeland Security should revert to Department of Defense, and not have such a grandiose title and fearful effect on our citizens and the world!) A Department of the Environment could immediately employ thousands of workers with minimal training to implement an Energy-Saving program.

Every property owner would be required to participate in an energy audit and would be given no interest loans or Housing and Community Development funds to insulate and correct energy loss from their buildings.. Structures would be insulated, air leaks corrected and inefficient heating and cooling systems identified and replaced.

Car owners would receive a coupon and be mandated to take their vehicles to any participating service station to have the tire air pressure checked and all systems addressed for greatest fuel efficiency. Just as we have mandatory emission testing supervised through each State’s Department of Motor Vehicles, there should be required fuel efficiency standards enforced. Government must be ready to require what people will not do voluntarily.

During the presidential debates, this idea was offered and it is a brilliant partial solution to the fuel crisis. By keeping a vehicle in top running condition, fuel use can be reduced by 30%. Doing these check-ups would require DMVs, or gas stations and places like Les Schwab Tires as subcontractors, to hire more people immediately and put them to work after some very basic training.

Of course the Department of the Environment would have extensive areas of responsibility. It would be the foundation and funding center for many public works projects, clean-up projects and preservation. Come to think of it, isn’t that what the Interior Department is supposed to do?

Scrap the National Endowment for the Arts and get real. Creating a Department of the Arts makes art an important part of the vision for a new America, as described in the book Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida. It would honor and elevate the Arts to its rightful stature. It is surprising to me that painters, musicians, actors, filmmakers, designers, singers, playwrights, craftsmen, artisans, poets, writers and performers haven’t organized into a solid political or voting block.

Artists are leading thinkers in our society and perform invaluable services to society. When you think about it, having a job means you can go and enjoy these creative art forms. It is sad to be out of work because when you have no money you can’t attend a concert, a play or a movie, or buy a beautiful piece of sculpture for your home or garden. You can’t even buy a book, and sometimes you can’t even pay your library fines (if your local library is still open!) Accessing and appreciating beauty is a necessity, not a luxury. We need a governmental body that makes this a funding priority by creating and supporting a living wage for the talented people who bring us joy.