Year of Renewal

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 52 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

There is a natural respiration to American politics.

A new leader wants the bad news to come out early in the term, so there is time for recovery before the next election.

This is how Ronald Reagan won re-election overwhelmingly. This is how Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole. Hard times are followed by good times.

In the present case green shoots are already apparent. The Republican opposition dismisses this and focuses on the deficit they did so much to create. But ask some Tea Party asshat whether we should have gone into Iraq or whether we should not have cut taxes eight years ago. If deficits matter, they matter. If deficits don't, they don't. To Republicans they only matter when Democrats are doing borrowing. They know the power of money and fear it when it's in the other side's hand.

The present issue is what any business does when it's in a hole. You either pull back and hope you can increase your profit margin, or you can invest anew in hopes that new profit, and bigger sales, will make the old debt look smaller.

Guess which course winning businesses take?

The latter is the Obama course, and history shows it works. Even when the money was pissed away on wars, as in the Bush case, there was economic growth following spending. When it was invested in technology or infrastructure, as in the examples of Kennedy and Roosevelt, the returns were enormous.

So economic growth is certainly coming. The real question is, what will the new game be? (To the left, GE chairman Jeff Immelt.)

Every recovery is based on some new game, an industry or a mechanism for spinning the straw of cash into the gold of profit. Bill Clinton had the Internet, Bush real estate. Reagan had the leveraged buy out boom, and Kennedy gave birth to a host of new technologies that emerged, slowly or more rapidly, from conglomerates and Apollo.

The new game is going to be green. The real reason China is reluctant to sign a climate treaty is because they've already invested heavily in the new game. Whether we're talking about efficiency, or new supply, the return on investment from alternative energy is fantastic. Renewable technology is national security as well  — it makes us truly independent if we're using our wind, our Sun and our tides to generate our energy. And if we're building a hydrogen cycle it means we're creating water where we need it.

Energy is a business with lots of zeroes after every number. Just shifting incentives in that direction will bring the oil giants around. They're already investing, more than you know, and if each lost dollar in hydrocarbon incentive is matched by a dollar of hydrogen incentive, business is business.

A growing economy puts a strong wind behind any politician's back, and so it will be with this President. True, he will have to spend a lot of time jawboning for reduced deficits, maybe for a war tax, certainly for spending restraint, but bending the health care cost curve even a little bit will generate enormous capital, and our past leadership in this space — in drugs and devices — means more money flowing in.

And what will Sarah Palin say when Barack Obama becomes a deficit hawk this spring? After the Tea Party spent all this time screaming about how bad the deficit is? Shut my mouth, indeed.

America is always filling itself with potential energy. It's the optimists of the world who come here to make their fortunes. We call ourselves a nation of refugees, but everyone who comes here, no matter where they come from, comes with a determination to work hard and make something good happen. Complain all you want about "illegal aliens," but they work like stink, for little money, they save what they make and squeeze dimes like your grandmother squeezed pennies.

The pampered few can complain all they want, but America's wealthy have the lowest tax rates anywhere in the industrial world. We can raise tax rates and still be a tax haven. And any greed-head who wants to take his money out should no longer enjoy the protection of our laws, our police and our armies. That's what you pay your taxes for, Mr. Rich Jerkoff, and you will pay them, smiling.

Rich assholes love to talk about how their percentage of the nation's tax bill is rising, but it's not rising nearly as fast as their percentage of national income is rising. You have 90% of the money and pay 50% of the taxes — I'd say that's a pretty good deal. Too good.

There is room in this economy to raise taxes and cut the deficit. Pull back on the stimulus, keep the dollar from sliding out of sight, do it all in a steady and measured way. That's the way it works for every smart President.

What this means, politically, is that Jane Hamsher is more important than Sarah Palin in the long run. When we play the 1970 game, Jane becomes Phyllis Schlafly. We're turning the past on its head here. Jane is leading the charge to the left as Phyllis led the charge to the right. Watch who Firedoglake backs in the coming primaries. That's where the real action is, on making better Democrats, not on Republicans tossing one another out of the one true political church.

On the Internet, unfortunately, there will be a renewed emphasis on law and order. The Internet is a global network, and laws something we love getting around, but national sovereignty is going to make a comeback here. Expect technical solutions like IPv6, more information sharing among governments, more hiring of data experts by police around the world. This is becoming a Neuromancer world, with government agencies playing a double game, supporting Iranian and Chinese dissidents at the same time we fight African and Ukranian hackers. But we've always played such double games.

There is much to learn. There is much to do. For me there are many stories to write. I have enjoyed working for ZDNet and CBS' Smartplanet. Hope to do more of it. If that gravy train stops there are other things I can do, and will do.

Smile. Morning is coming to America.