Do you love your smartphone but hate your service provider? LTE may change that.

This week on The Digital Future, Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson says new LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology will make a huge difference in our lives.

Listen to the interview here.

2012 will be a big year for TV, voice recognition and Amazon.com.

Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson has issued his list of top 10 technology predictions for 2012.  He shares some of the highlights on The Digital Future with KPLU’s Dave Meyer.

Listen to the interview here and read the full set of predictions here.

Let’s hear from two fellows who are unabashed capitalists and acolytes of Adam Smith… just like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (and me!)… starting with one of the world’s top/respected pundits on technology industry, Mark Anderson, CEO of the Strategic News Service:

“For me, there is no more poignant example of the Bush 9.11 era, and the need to get beyond it now. Like two slides, I picture, first: an army of soldiers surrounding bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora, and then being ordered by Team Bush to wait until the locals can get there and participate, at which point the enemy has escaped.

“I compare that slide to the story of this year: after a year in secret investigation and preparation, Team Obama finds a likely target compound in Pakistan, orders in Seal Team Six via stealth choppers, uses overwhelming force, and shoots to kill. DNA samples are taken to confirm ID, and the body is dumped ignominiously in the ocean, with no propaganda pics for the enemy, and no burial process or site to rally round.” What a difference.  And yet, which man is called a “wimp”?”

(I will soon put up an essay appraising the different ways that democrats and republicans use military might and wage war.  You’ll be astonished by how stark it is, like night and day. Almost like two different species.)

Read the complete post at Contrary Brin

We’d like to thank all our Predictions Dinner attendees for making this year’s sold out event our best one yet.

——

Strategic News Service presents its 7th Annual New York Predictions Dinner in New York City this week, featuring a conversation with Robert Hormats, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy & Agricultural Affairs. The reception, interview and dinner will take place Thursday, December 8th, at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel.

The evening serves as an exclusive preview into Strategic News Service CEO Mark Anderson’s annual list of predictions in global technology and economics. In past years, Anderson has successfully predicted the 2007 global economic meltdown, the emergence of “Currency Wars” and of “Economic Cyberwar,” together with increasing global IP theft by China, among other major global trends.

Other registered guests include Nuance Communications’ Chairman and CEO, Paul Ricci; AOL CTO, Alexander Gounares; Department of Homeland Security, Director of Global Cyber Security Management, Richard Marshall; Warburg Pincus, Sr. Advisor, Bill Janeway; and top technology managers from Accenture and Deloitte.

“The world economy is now pivoting around Intellectual Property, and I am looking forward to hearing the State Department’s view on how this will play out between China and the Inventing Countries,” said Mark Anderson, FiRe Chair and SNS CEO.

Register here for the New York Dinner.

25 November 2011 23:16

Mark Anderson:

Tim, how do you see Britain’s economic future?

26 November 2011 14:09:

Tim Coldwell:

Northern Rock sale raised £750m, “enough to finance the UK state spending machine for about 9 hours”

In a nutshell, the old French jibe that Britain is a nation of shopkeepers comes to mind. At last someone (Andy Haldane of B of E) has published a good paper to refute the bankers’ claim that the city is so important to the UK economy.

Hot topic this last week:

There is much talk of doing something about excessive executive pay. The government are “consulting”. I’ve yet to hear anyone suggest that outside directors who are involved in corporate remuneration committees should be both elected and paid solely and directly by shareholders (aka owners) rather than the corporation. FTSE 100 senior execs getting a 49% pay rise (aided and abetted by pay consultants) when the general population suffers falling real incomes is not smart.

Economic future

The UK’s economic future looks grim. If the usual technique of attracting inward investment (gateway to Europe concept like Ireland) with low corporate tax rates is used I suspect an EU backlash may result. Pushing down the £ FX rate a few years ago did not go unnoticed. And, if the Euro survives it’s hard to see it holding its current strength if, as most expect, printing a lot of new money will be needed to bail out weak EZ countries which assuming little is sanitized QE will restart UK QE to continue the “currency wars”.

2 years ago I told Jon Moulton when he was indicating support for the latest government plan to cut public expenditure to increase private investment etc., that I couldn’t see sufficient aggregate demand anywhere to support this plan.

Lo and behold, government borrowing is now forecast to be less than 1% different than would have been Labour’s plan. Growth is going to be flat for years at close to zero.

Meanwhile articles such as this cause much head scratching amongst the talking heads.

A little data that makes me smile:

England is twice as crowded as Germany, three and a half times France and has more people per square km than India.

Sorry this is short and rambling but there is not a lot, good or bad, to report

Tim

26 November 2011 14:28:

The euro zone

Is this really the end?

Unless Germany and the ECB move quickly, the single currency’s collapse is looming”

www.economist.com/node/21540255

Tim

26 November 2011 14:35

And:

How to stop the bogus bonus

Successful oversight is going to require more transparency about what trades are being made. But transparency is a scarce commodity

“It used to be so easy to “earn” a performance bonus in financial services. Step one: agree a contract whereby you are paid if you exceed a modest benchmark with the funds you are managing. Step two: borrow money and invest it in risky assets. Step three: profit! Step three does not follow automatically, of course, if the risky asset does not pay off. But from the point of view of the fund manager and his bonus, itā€™s a case of ā€ heads I win, tails the investor loses.

http://timharford.com/2011/11/how-to-stop-the-bogus-bonus/

26 November 2011 14:56

And a very good review of the current status, focussed mainly on Europe (UK is a side issue) from [John Mauldin, writing at Barry's "The Big Picture"].

Changing the Rules
When Even Germany Fails
European Inverted Yield Curves
Time to Review the Bang!Moment
The Risk of Contagion in the US
Time to Start Watching China
New York, China, and Some Links

27 November 2011 12:29:

Treasury subsidises small-business loans

Global Economy

What’s the matter with Spain?

What’s the matter with Italy?

Is the euro about to capsize?

How might Greece leave the euro?

Too-clever banking may have played a role in getting us into the economic and financial mess we’re in.

But the Treasury hopes that a bit of financial engineering of its own will help to get us out.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, is aiming to use limited quantities of taxpayers’ money to unlock private-sector cash and to stimulate activity by private-sector businesses, at a time when those businesses are scaling back investment and expansion ambitions.

The most eye-catching initiative, which goes by the name of credit easing, could reduce the interests costs on £20bn of loans for small and medium size businesses by around 1% over the next couple of years.

Then there’s a separate proposal to subsidise to the tune of £1bn the creation of new private sector funds that would lend to all but the very biggest businesses – in competition with the banks that currently dominate business lending.

Finally, the Treasury will be giving technical assistance to pension funds, to unlock around £20bn of British pension savers’ cash for investment in roads, rail, and other infrastructure projects – to get British pension funds providing capital to improve infrastructure in the way that Canadian and Australian pension funds already do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15908514

Pushing on a string?

Tim

27 November 2011 13:08:

ECB couldn’t inflate even if it wanted to: Warren Mosler http://t.co/0J7zWyKA

If true, is this good or bad news for UK (and US)? It seems to imply that ECB could print (without sterilisation), not weaken the Euro and EZ could take over from US as the the world’s consumer of last resort.

Somehow I doubt it The newly printed Euros would eventually get sold for $s, Yuan etc. to pay for increasing imports while EZ exports slump. Then the fake status of a kind of “reserve currency” would become obvious to investors in Euro denominated debt …. etc.

Or can everyone play the Japanese game now …. until no-one can?

Tim

27 November 2011 13:34:

Germany and the Eurozone: Clutching disaster from the jaws of victory?

John Muellbauer
25 November 2011

For months economists have been arguing that Germany holds the key to ending the Eurozone crisis. Should it relax its anti-inflation stance and allow the ECB to inflate away sovereign debt? Or should it write a cheque of its own to the EFSF? Neither, says this column. There is a simple solution, if only Eurozone leaders can see it. Eurobonds are the answer – but wiith conditions.

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7332

Mark,

This might be close to the real plan. But does it address demand? Not directly, but a halt to the EZ crisis might help sentiment, bearing in mind that the EU is the world’s largest economic zone. Therefore this would be good for UK (and US).

Tim

27 November 2011 13:44:

Reviving manufacturing
No land of giants
A lack of big companies hampers efforts to boost manufacturing

Nov 26th 2011 | from the print edition

Its effect on the economy is even mightier

THREE decades ago a Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher removed many of the props that had supported manufacturing, revealing its weakness and causing factories to collapse. Now manufacturing is modish. The business secretary, Vince Cable, talks of polishing the image of an industry associated with dirt and decline, and of rebalancing the economy away from financial services toward more tangible stuff. On November 17th David Cameron attended the launch of a new engineering prize and opened a factory in Surrey that will make 4,000 expensive supercars a year.

In the early 1980s about 6m people worked in manufacturing; today the figure is barely 2.5m. Once-famous firms such as British Leyland, GEC and ICI have fallen apart or been taken over and dismembered. Stronger growth in other sectors means manufacturing has slumped from 25% of the economy to 11% today. Yet manufacturing output was rising before recession hit in 2008. Foreign firms like Nissan, Honda and Toyota opened car factories that became efficiency leaders in Europe, taking British car production back up to 1.5m vehicles a year. Some four-fifths of the output of such factories is exported.

www.economist.com/node/21540267

See also: www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-top-manufacturing-countries.htm

China was once before the world’s leading manufacturer — way back in 1830, the country was responsible for 30% of the global industrial output.

Tim

27 November 2011 14:00:

Juergen Stark explains ECB opposition to monetisation is not about inflation

Conclusion: central bankers always prefer to force elected officials to make the tough political choices that are the essence of fiscal policy. The fiscal agent adds and subtracts net financial assets in the private sector by deficit spending, or cutting spending and raising taxes. Central bankers want the fiscal agent to use these tools as the driver of macroeconomic policy while the monetary agent is tasked with more narrow aims.

www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/11/juergen-stark-on-ecb-inflation-monetisation.html

Mark,

This is why the ECB is what I call a “fake” central bank, hence the Euro is, perhaps, a “fake” currency.

This is not to say I think CBs bailing out idiotic banks with taxpayer money is part of their role

Ed Harrison’s take:

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a leading German broadsheet, the ECB chief economist explained his resignation and that of Bundesbank head Axel Weber in terms very similar to these. The argument is clear. Whether the ECB eventually is forced to take on this quasi-fiscal role by the escalating sovereign debt crisis is another matter. I have said the ECB will be forced into this role because of Italy, though I do have my doubts.

Below is my translation of the Stark interview. Note his commentary on commodity and asset-price inflation and the distortionary asset-based economic model based on cheap money that is practiced in the US. His is a framing of the problem with which I agree due to the altered private portfolio preferences this Greenspan/Bernanke put engenders.

However, I do not agree with Stark’s framing of deficits as the “root causes” of the crisis. Spain and Ireland had no deficits pre-crisis. The problem was the incomplete institutional arrangement of the euro zone currency union. Any solution that does not address this will fail.

Also notice his framing of the Eurobond/fiscal union issue. He doesn’t rule out Eurobonds. Rather, he says it must be fiscal/political union first and only then Eurobonds.

Political union is a dream, fiscal union may be possible but will still take years to achieve, meanwhile …

Tim

27 November 2011 14:07:

Sources: IMF to offer Italy a 600 billion euro bailout via ECB funding

According to Austrian daily Der Standard, Italy is to receive a 600 billion euro bailout courtesy of the IMF. Note: the article has what I assume to be a typo, referring to 600 million euros instead of 600 billion. I have fixed that in the translation below. Also note that the ultimate source of this information is La Stampa, an Italian daily newspaper.

www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/11/imf-ecb-italy-600-billion-euro-bailout.html

Mark,

So, indirectly the US taxpayer may now be on the hook to the ECB and Italy too. But, of course, the IMF never takes a haircut

Tim

27 November 2011 14:18:

Some related tweets:

RT @economistmeg: The EUR600bn IMF plan might look something like this (as I did the calculations 10 days ago) http://t.co/069tXbnW

edwardnh:
There’s a lotta lotta going on in Europe this weekend. throwing stuff on the wall to see what sticks. I anticipate a strong market reaction

RT @trumanfactor: “When a central bank has financed states in grand style, it has always led to disaster.” (Juergen Stark) http://t.co/ORCLQGKT - via @polit2k

RT @hblodget: IMF said to be bailing out Italy… which means US taxpayer is bailing out Italy http://t.co/plnfDWwp

Tim

27 Nov 2011 14:41:34:

John Rentoul: Labour wakes up, fuzzy and too late

As Osborne fiddles, Miliband, rather belatedly, is beginning to think about balancing the books

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-labour-wakes-up-fuzzy-and-too-late-6268529.html

Mark,

Alternative title: “2 men in a boat … up the creek … without a paddle between them”

Tim

PS: And more tweets from @economistmeg:

An IMF bailout for Italy would be followed immediately by IMF bailout for Spain. Hope they’re considering that in their calcs for It bailout

EZ crisis key dates ahead http://t.co/8W2CVayV

27 Nov 2011 21:15:32:

The Entire Sovereign Debt Crisis Can Be Understood By Looking At Sweden Vs. Finland
Read more: www.businessinsider.com/sweden-vs-finland-2011-11

and:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/the-euro-curse

Mark,

Is the ECB now being seen as a fake CB because it denies LOLR role? In a crisis investors look much further than they normally do when doing risk analysis.

Tim

27 November 2011 22:05:

Mark Anderson:

Hi Tim,

1. yes.
2. we are thinking of posting this whole run on the abrightfire.com site, instead of in the letters section as last time. ca va?

mark

28 November 2011 01:17:

Mark Anderson:

Would you have any interest in writing a Special Issue for us?

Tim Coldwell:

OK with me. Bit of a mouthful?

Latest:

Roubini doubts the La Stamp article re IMF €600 billion for Italy. [ Me too ]

RT @Nouriel: Only way to get €600bn to italy is to combine IMF, NABB, ECB/SMP, new SDRs & bigger EFSF. To get there EFSF has to be turned into a €1tr ESM.

Should the Fed save Europe from disaster?

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8918784/Should-the-Fed-save-Europe-from-disaster.html

ZekeJMiller‚
Obama and EU leaders will make statements at 1:40 tomorrow. Will discuss the global economy in the Roosevelt Room.

Hmm

28 November 2011 04:19

This time it’s Steve Keen on the hot seat on HARDtalk. Now, Steve is one of the few economists who actually predicted the global financial crisis. But what about the possibility of another Great Depression? That possibility and how to avoid it were the topics of conversation in this 25-minute interview. Great stuff.

www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/11/steve-keen-on-hardtalk-on-the-financial-crisis-and-the-economy.html

Tim

28 Nov 2011 04:23:41

The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse
By Wolfgang Mȕnchau

“Italy’s disastrous bond auction on Friday tells us time is running out. The eurozone has 10 days at most.”
RT @pkedrosky: .@zkiraly If you can’t access the Munchau piece in FT, try this: http://t.co/riBynPU2

It’s official: China and Russia are the two biggest sources of cyber espionage attacks against the United States.

The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive singled out those two nations in a recent report to Congress (coincidentally, it’s been difficult to reach the counterintelligence website since the report came out and those links may not work).

Our technology commentator, Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson, has been warning about this threat for several years. Although the news is no surprise, Mark thinks the official acknowledgement will encourage governments and corporations to more closely guard their secrets.

 Listen Here

Strategic News Service

Nuance Communications is the leading provider of voice and natural language solutions that bridge the gap between people and their information and communications. The company designs and delivers intuitive solutions that help people live and work more intelligently. From voice technologies that let people search the Web or send messages from a mobile device, to services that help companies offer superior customer service experiences and healthcare solutions that help physicians focus on patient care instead of documentation, Nuance’s priority is creating solutions that put people in command. The company provides the tools to inform, connect and empower people to be more productive and creative.

“SNS has been accurately predicting the landscape around us for many years. With this new partnership, we look forward to interacting more intensely with the SNS community and bringing Nuance solutions forward into even greater consumer and business solutions,” said Paul Ricci, Nuance Communications Chairman and CEO.

“We have all been waiting for that moment in computing history when voice became the ultimate enabler in human-machine interaction. Thanks to Nuance, that time is now arriving. We are excited to be able work with our new partners in assisting them as they revolutionize how we compute and communicate in virtually every major industry,” said Mark Anderson, FiRe Chair and SNS CEO.

The Strategic News Service provides a weekly online newsletter predicting global trends in technology and economics. It is the most accurate publicly-graded predictive newsletter covering the computer and telecom industries. Recent calls include the 2007 global economic meltdown, the emergence of “Currency Wars” and of “Economic Cyberwar,” together with increasing global IP theft by China, among other major global trends. SNS is delivered each week to a subscriber base of C-level global technology and finance executives, and to thought leaders in technology, science and economics. Together with Accenture, SNS has just completed a London-based conference on “Economic Cyberwar” for international CIOs of major global corporations. It is also the host of the annual Future in Review (FiRe) technology conference.

FiRe attendees convene each year with the goal of solving major world problems; a goal that is consistently met through FiRe’s collaboration across disparate industries and the intellectual and strategic guidance of FiRe Chair and SNS CEO, Mark Anderson. Now in its tenth year, Future in Review 2012 will take place May 22-25^th at the beautiful Montage Resort in Laguna Beach, California. The Economist has called FiRe “The best technology conference in the world.”

To register and learn more, visit www.futureinreview.com.

Strategic News Service was founded by Mark Anderson in 1995 as the first paid online news service. Since its inception, SNS has proven the most accurate predictive newsletter covering the computer and telecom industries. Its subscribers include top managers at technology companies across the globe, including Microsoft, Dell, HP, Cisco, Intel, Sun, Google, Telstra, Orange and others.

SNS has been operating the annual FiRe Conference for ten years. The Economist calls FiRe “the best technology conference in the world.” FiRe exposes world experts and participants to new ideas, producing an accurate portrait of the future and focuses on creating technology solutions to current local and global problems. FiRe 2012 will take place May 22-25, 2012 at the Montage in Laguna Beach, CA. For more information go to www.futureinreview.com.

Future in Review™ is a Strategic News Service™ conference. Future in Review™, and Strategic News Service™ are registered international trademarks. The SNS newsletter is the most accurate publicly ranked predictive newsletter in computing and communications.

Websites: www.stratnews.com, www.futureinreview.com

Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson is predicting the technology sector will end the year on a relatively high note. But, as he tells KPLU’s Dave Meyer on The Digital Future, he’s worried about the first quarter of 2012.

 Listen Here

Although there were terrorism alerts, the 10th anniversary of 9/11 was a peaceful one, thanks in part to security measures developed by America’s high-tech companies.

Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson participated in the technology sector response to 9/11. This month on “The Digital Future,” Mark and KPLU’s Dave Meyer talk about security technology and its impact on individual liberty.

Listen here

Obama’s Speech on Jobs [and Publisher’s Version]

For whatever reason, we are left in this Post-9.11 world with a legacy opposite what one would have guessed that first, clear morning. The world that suffered with us quickly turned against us as our war machine took over. The economy that had just been the most expansive in history rapidly turned to debits and debt as we became mired in unnecessary wars, instead of investing in 21st-century research and development.

This week, President Obama will give a(nother) speech on jobs. No doubt, it will be rousing, and go nowhere. Whether this is because the GOP has taken a Party Before Country attitude, requiring American suffering and failure in order to win the next election, or whether it’s just Obama’s lack of political courage, I don’t see any real movement toward solutions.

For that reason, I’d like to offer my own version of Obama’s speech, as a way to move the U.S. beyond 9.11.

My Fellow Americans:

We have dropped the ball. In every way possible, and in almost every sector, we are doing less, and doing a poorer job of it, than yesterday. As your leader, I have tried to warn you, issue by issue, but it’s not getting through.

For whatever reason, the wrong people, the wrong forces, are in sway, and they do not put American prosperity – or our ability to sustain that prosperity – first. Instead, they prioritize short-term profits, shareholder quarterly returns, and Party before Country.

It is as though some illness has fallen on the country – perhaps on the whole world – which, if not challenged directly, will overwhelm the great deeds done up to now.

Since this country’s beginnings, every generation has done better than the last. This is a critical part of what we call the American Dream. But one could also argue that, since this country’s founding, each new group of political, social, and business leaders was smarter, more able, better-educated, and more productive than before.

Until now.

Too many of our leaders are opting for the quick lie, the fast hand, the easy buck, the made-up quarterly penny-per-share. Our media brazenly lie to us, without any cost, except that we lose the ability to know our own problems. Party leaders lie about their past or private lives; business leaders lie about climate change because they worry it will hit their bottom line. A very few rich men hire professional liars to influence modern elections, with discouragingly strong result. The Supreme Court allows unlimited corporate spending on electing our – your and my fellow citizens’ – democratically elected representatives, in the name of freedom.

No wonder no one trusts governments today. In Washington, D.C., we can’t even talk to one another without fear of reprimand by the “gray men” in the shadows behind us. Representatives, on their first day in town, are forced to sign iron pledges that deprive them of the right of compromise, and immediately put special interests ahead of common citizens. Debate is dead, corporations rule, the middle class is history, and the gulf between rich and poor widens at a breakneck daily pace.

I could lie to you about all this, but I’ve come to realize: what is the point? To get re-elected? No, thanks. I’d rather take the one year left before that election, and just tell you the truth. After over 200 years as a great country, and in this time of need, you deserve it.

Here are two things that are true about your country today:

First, you don’t own it anymore: corporations do. America is bought and paid for by corporations, and if you want it back, you are going to have to fight for it tooth and nail. Frankly, I don’t think you have it in you – and neither do your representatives, nor do their lobbyist friends on K Street.

Second, we have lost our way as a country.

America is a nation of inventors, and it always has been. This is what we are good at, this is what other nations buy – and steal – from us, and this is what pays for our growth.

Today, the global economy is driven by technology, by invention, by the commercial application s of pure science. China knows this, and works overtime to steal our inventions, by piracy, by reverse engineering, by espionage, by hacking into our computer systems, and through the forced disclosure of our inventions and trade secrets in return for access to her markets. How dare she!!

And how dare our executives give away this nation’s crown jewels, their companies’ most important designs and inventions, in return for the fraud of big sales most will never have the slightest chance of achieving.

This has to stop, and it has to stop now, while we still have the ability to stop it. America lies like a patient on a hospital table, the blood – the wealth from our own ideas and inventions – draining away through a tube. We have to get angry about this, we have to get up from the table, and we have to rip that tube out. We have to get paid for our inventions.

I will admit to you: we in Washington have been fiddling as America burns. Everyone talks about the importance of jobs, but ultimately there is only one place jobs come from, in a long-term and sustainable way: inventions.For that reason, I am putting forward the first in a series of bills tomorrow morning, called the “Intellectual Property Protection Act,” or IPPA. It requires corporations to re-value their inventions based on world competitors, and to protect these inventions more effectively. It makes the unpaid disclosure of IP a crime, regardless of whether by employee or CEO; and it provides extreme penalties for cyber theft of our nation’s secrets.

This illegal flow of our nation’s lifeblood has to stop, and I promise you, I will do everything in my power to stop it. I expect complete and quick agreement on this law, from both parties.

Here is another rude joke on those of you in the vanishing middle class: free trade agreements destroy jobs. You don’t believe me? Just look at what happened to American jobs after NAFTA: Ross Perot was absolutely right. And just watch what is happening now to Brazil, as it cozies up to China: currency manipulation, loss of manufacturing, loss of jobs.

Our theories on this were wrong; the card deck was stacked, and we were trying to play a fair hand. Well, it turns out, the world just doesn’t work that way.

Free trade deals are bad for jobs if your workers are middle-class, and great for jobs if your workers get slave wages. And that’s the truth.

For that reason, I am recommending that every trade agreement be referred first to the Congressional Budget Office for a strict report on the jobs expected to be won or lost by that agreement. We don’t need to lose any more jobs right now.

But we don’t have a lot of time to solve this jobs problem, so we need some interim solutions, even as we protect the jobs we have left, and try to create new, better long-term employment.

Short-term, we know from Keynes that we need to get our workforce to work, at almost any cost. In other words, the use of our human resources is more important than any argument about costs. We learned this again in the Great Depression, and I will not let any splinter group in any party keep us from this goal.

We will employ more people, starting now, even in short-term jobs. A productive human being is always more valuable to society than an unemployed one, and any system which does not recognize that fact is just plain wrong.

For that reason, I am putting forward a series of new bills that will drive unemployment down from near 10%, where it is today, to 7.5%, or half the distance we ultimately want to go. This money will be made available to any firm working in the fields of clean or alternative energy provision, with a preference for those inventing new ways of achieving low-cost energy independence.

And, before you ask, I will tell you exactly where this money is going to come from: the military.

We do not need to fight every nation in every war, and we do not need to be the world’s policeman – in fact, the world doesn’t want it, and neither, as far as I can tell, do American taxpayers. They don’t need to see their boys and girls coming back in boxes from places that have no military significance . This is a wrong path, and one we must now leave.

Every empire in history was forged using the financial rewards of empire to pay for it – until we came along. We are the only country that has tried to maintain a global military presence, not only at our own cost, but without charging a nickel. Even better, after we bomb our enemies, we rebuild their cities using American taxpayer money. Purely from a financial perspective, this is insane. This isn’t empire building, it’s a road straight to bankruptcy – and our current accounts prove it.

Today, America spends many times what the rest of the world, added together, spends per year on the military. We can cut 25% of that, bring our soldiers home from Germany, Japan, South Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and everywhere else they are unneeded, and still continue to have the largest military budget by far, and the most effective military in the world.

We need those men and women home, working on projects that benefit the American Economy: building a new power grid, building new roads, bridges, railways, and Internet connections, not for our enemies, but for us.

It takes courage to do these things, but they can be done, and done in a way that benefits all Americans.

We have to get back to what we do best: Inventing. And to invent, you have to be near the making of that thing, so, regarding those who assure us that we no longer need to make things, we must now strongly disagree.

We must keep our basic industries strong, or we cannot innovate around them. Steel, cars, energy, aerospace, electronics, chips, computers, televisions – we have given away many parts of these industries already, or let them be taken from us.

Now, we have to take at least some of them back.

From this day forward, our job together is to make jobs, by making things, the best things in the world, the things that we invent – and then getting paid for them. Re-energizing this “Invention Economy” – when backed by intelligent national policy – will provide us with the other things we miss today. Whether you want more jobs or better jobs, the return of income to the middle class, or the ability to dig ourselves out of this debt hole, all of the answers are driven by the same single thing:

We are inventors, and now we must rebuild our nation and our economy on this single idea.

Many people believe that inventions are the commercial application of pure or basic science. I think there is a good history of proof behind this idea. For decades, the great research corporations funded laboratories that yielded our most important inventions and discoveries, from AT&T’s Bell Labs to Xerox PARC, from IBM to HP. And while some of these efforts continue today, all are reduced or being eliminated, under the pressure of quarterly earnings and short-term thinking.

For that reason, I will also be sending a bill to Congress that helps beef up both sides of this equation, providing new funds for pure scientific research, while adding research tax credits for those corporations that undertake new large-scale efforts, as long as they are located inside the United States.

Even so, we cannot forget that Corporations do not serve nations, they serve shareholders; and their response to any crisis is to cut jobs, or move them to the cheapest place on Earth, wherever it might be that week.

This is exactly why I am putting forward a new piece of legislation tomorrow, which shall make it illegal for any corporation to give any money, whatsoever, to any elected official, from this day forward. This new law, the “Take Back America” law,  will let us go forward to create the jobs that are so vital to our future. A Corporation is not a citizen – no matter what the Supreme Court may say. A Corporation is not a human being, with human rights. With your help, we are going to tell the world, and the Supreme Court, that this is so.

This law will also make it illegal not just for corporations, but for any group – unions, PACs, superPACs, any group at all – to give money to representatives. When it is passed, only citizens – only human beings – will have that right, and you will again be in control of your own government. You will have a real participatory democracy, as the Constitution intended, and not the sham of Rule by Lobby that you have today.

This problem is a coin with two sides: candidates feel they need those corporate funds, because they are forced to spend so much money on television ads. Today, we are going to resolve the other side of this issue.

The airwaves belong to the people: something your grandparents knew well, but which current TV network owners would rather have you forget. Today, candidates spend millions – and soon, perhaps billions – of dollars on television ads, to get access to those airwaves, your airwaves,  in order to get elected. But you don’t get the money. Rather, this has become a top revenue producer for the TV industry.

In order to take this horrible financial pressure off of candidates, I am sending a separate bill to Congress this week that will solve this problem. Called the “People’s Airwaves” bill, this law will again provide free, prime-time TV slots for any candidate who qualifies for federal funds, regardless of whether he or she elects to take them.

The people own the airwaves, and they deserve to see and hear their candidates without forcing them to sell their souls.

I apologize to you, for whatever part I have personally played in letting things get so far out of control; but as you can see, this is a failed pattern that goes back decades, in both parties. And I ask you now, for whatever power and trust remains in you, the real citizens of this democracy, to rise up and take back the power you once had. I need you to insist on regaining the control of your own destiny.

The power of America has always been vested in, and flowed from, its people, through the Constitution, and through their willingness to put self-interest behind national success. On the beaches at D-Day, or in the factories of Detroit, Americans have always understood the power of working together to solve problems.

God bless America, and God bless those founders who invented it.